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LIBRARY 

NIVERSITY  OF 

CMJfORNtA 

SAN  DIEGO 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  YEAR  BOOK 


SELECTIONS    FROM    THE    WRITINGS 


RT.    REV.    PHILLIPS    BROOKS,    D.D. 


BY 

H.  L.  S.    AND    L.  H.  S. 


"  The  thought  is  stronger  for  us  because  he  has  thought  it.  The  feeling  is  more 
•ivid  because  lie  lias  felt  it.  And  always  he  leads  us  to  God  by  a  way  along 
vhich  lie  has  gone  himself."  — PREACHING,  p.  119. 


NEW    YORK 

E.    P.    DUTTON    &   COMPANY 

31  WLST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET 
1894 


Copyright,  1893 
BY   E.   P.   DUTTOX   &  CO. 


Press  of  J.  .T.  Little  &  To. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


NOTE.  -  -  References  to  the  Works  of  Bishop 
Brooks  have  been  added,  with  the  thought 
that  some  might  like  to  turn  to  the  context. 
They  are  respectively  as  follows  :  I.,  II.,  III., 
IV.,  V.,  to  Vols.  one,  two,  three,  four,  and 
five  of  the  Sermons.  "Influence"  to  "The 
Influence  of  Jesus."  "Preaching"  to  the 
"Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching."  "Toler 
ance  "  to  "Tolerance." 


PREFACE. 


^TO  the  friends  of  Bishop  Brooks  this  little 
hook  will  come  as  no  stranger.  His  ser 
mons  have  had  such  living  qualities  in  them, 
that  they  are  read  and  re-read  by  many  a 
one  who  never  came  under  the  influence  of  his 
marvellous  personality.  Their  quality  will  be 
still  farther  tested,  it  seems  to  us,  by  this 
separating  process  of  presenting  their  thoughts 
in  fragments.  If  in  this  way  the  thoughts  do 
not  lose  in  suggestiveness,  in  vividness,  and 
in  strength,  it  will  be  a  new  testimony  to  the 
fact  that  the  sermons  are  among  the  immortal 
few,  which  are  for  all  time  and  not  for  one 
special  age  alone. 

The  aim  of  the  book  is  to  group  together 
cognate  thoughts  in  sequence  of  time,  as  well 
as  to  represent  fairly  this  man  of  large  love 
for  humanity  and  of  absolute  surrender  to  his 
Master. 

That  he  found  a  place  for  such  books  is 
sympathetically  shown  by  his  preface  to  a 


iv  PREFACE. 

volume  of  selections  published  some  years 
since.  In  this  preface  he  says:  "The  most 
notable  quality  of  such  books  is  their  sugges- 
tiveness.  ...  It  is  not  the  fulness  of  their 
hands  which  makes  them  welcome.  It  is  the 
delicacy  and  discrimination  of  the  finger  which 
they  lay  upon  some  spring  in  us  and  set  some 
of  our  nature  free.  .  .  .  Some  suggestive  word 
out  of  this  book  will  fall  upon  a  score  of  lives 
some  morning,  and  will  touch  the  key  of  each. 
Each  will  be  better  for  it,  but  how  differently  ! 
One  will  do  better  trading  ;  another  will  do 
better  teaching ;  another's  household  life  will 
be  more  pure  and  lofty." 

To  those  who  have  known  Bishop  Brooks  in 
the  past,  and  looked  to  him  for  guidance  in  the 
upward  way,  these  daily  thoughts  from  him 
will  surely  come  with  the  added  joy  of  memo 
ries  which  are  very  precious.  "In  the  old 
days  it  was  strength  to  be  with  him  ;  in  those 
to  come  it  will  be  strength  to  remember 

him." 

THE   EDITORS. 


JANUARY    i. 


Brethren,  the  time  is  short.  —  I.  COR.  vii.  29. 

'"THE  shortness  of  life  .  .  .  spreads  the  feel- 
^  ing  of  criticalness  all  through  life,  and 
makes  each  moment  prepare  for  the  next  — 
makes  life  prepare  for  life.  This  is  its  power. 
Blessed  is  he  who  feels  it.  Blessed  is  he  in 
whose  experience  each  day  and  each  hour  has 
all  the  happiness  and  all  the  solemnity  of  a 
parent  towards  the  day  and  the  hour  to  which 
it  gives  birth,  stands  sponsor  for  it,  holds  it  for 
baptism  at  the  font  of  God.  Such  days  are 
sacred  in  each  other's  eyes.  The  life  in  which 
such  days  succeed  each  other  is  a  holy  family, 
with  its  moments  "bound  each  to  each  by 
natural  piety."  i.  328. 


Sail  fast,  sail  fast, 

Ark  of  my  hopes,  Ark  of  my  dreams ; 
Sweep  lordly  o'er  the  drowned  Past, 
Fly  glittering  through  the  sun's  strange  beams  ; 

Sail  fast,  sail  fast. 

Breaths  of  new  buds  from  off  some  drying  lea, 
With  news  about  the  Future  scent  the  sea  ; 
My  brain  is  beating  like  the  heart  of  Haste, 
I'll  loose  me  a  bird  upon  this  Present  waste  ; 

Go,  trembling  song, 
And  stay  not  long  ;  oh,  stay  not  long  : 
Thou'rt  only  a  gray  and  sober  dove, 
But  thine  eye  is  faith  and  thy  wing  is  love. 

SIDNEY  LANIER. 


JANUARY   2. 


Ye  have  not  passed  this  way  heretofore. 

JOSHUA  iii.  4. 

T  T  is  good,  then,  for  a  man  to  come  to  a  future 
which  he  does  not  know.  It  is  good  for  you 
if  God  brings  you  to  the  borders  of  some 
promised  land.  Do  not  hesitate  at  any  experi 
ence  because  of  its  novelty.  Do  not  draw 
back  from  any  way  because  you  never  have 
passed  there  before.  The  truth,  the  task,  the 
joy,  the  suffering,  on  whose  border  you  are 
standing,  oh,  my  friend,  to-day,  go  into  it 
without  a  fear  ;  only  go  into  it  with  God  - 
the  God  who  has  been  always  with  you.  Let 
the  past  give  up  to  you  all  the  assurance  of 
Him  which  it  contains.  Set  that  assurance 
of  Him  before  you.  Follow  that,  and  the  new 
life  to  which  it  leads  you  shall  open  its  best 
richness  to  you.  v.  3o5. 

Grow  old  along  with  me ! 

The  best  is  yet  to  be, 

The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made : 

Our  times  are  in  His  hand 

Who  saith,  "  A  whole  I  planned, 

Youth    shows   but  half ;    trust  God ;    see  all,   nor  be 

afraid." 

ROBERT  BROWNING. 


JANUARY    3.  3 

[77/61  shepherds\  made  known  abroad  the  saying 
which  was  told  them  concerning  this  child. 

LUKE  ii.  17. 

THE  tale  the  shepherds  tell  fits  the  world  we 
know  —  a  world  which  has  God  in  it,  and 
yet  in  which  even  God  works  under  the  limita 
tions  of  humanity,  and  where  the  power  which 
is  divine  yet  lingers  and  must  slowly  grow. 
Surely  this  is  our  world  to  which  the  Incarnation 
perfectly  corresponds. 

Sureness  and  patience  —  sureness  because  it 
is  God ;  patience  because  it  is  a  child.  Sure- 
ness  and  patience  !  Oh,  my  friends,  if  you  and 
I  could  catch  them  both  from  the  shepherds' 
story,  how  clear  this  world  would  grow  to  us, 
and  with  what  calm  and  faithful  energy  we 
should  work  away  at  it  in  these  few  years  in 
which  God  has  appointed  us  to  work ;  .  .  . 
satisfied,  perfectly  satisfied,  if  we  can  help 
the  new  Incarnation  of  Christ  (which  is  the 
gradual  embodiment  of  His  divine  soul  in  the 
life  of  a  regenerated  world)  toward  its  com 
pletion,  as  Mary  and  Joseph  tended  and  taught 
the  Divine  Child  who  was  in  their  humble 
house.  Can  we  picture  a  life  more  soberly 
enthusiastic,  more  patiently  devoted  —  a  life 
more  truly  "  without  haste  and  without  rest" 
than  that  life  must  be  ? 

CHRISTMAS  SERMON,  p.  20,  21. 


4  JANUARY   4. 

Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be  :  but  we  know 
that,  when  He  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like  Him  ; 
for  we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is.  And  every  man 
that  hath  this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself  even  as 
He  is  pure.  —  I.  JOHN  iii.  2,  3. 

JVIOT  merely,  I  shall  grow  so  that  I  shall  be 
able  to  understand  vastly  more  of  what 
God  is  and  of  what  He  is  doing.  God  also  will 
be  ever  doing  new  things.  He  is  forever  active. 
He  has  purposes  concerning  me  which  He  has 
not  yet  unfolded.  Therefore  each  year  grows 
sacred  with  wondering  expectation.  Therefore 
1  and  the  world  may  go  forth  from  each  old 
year  into  the  new  which  follows  it,  certain 
that  in  that  new  year  God  will  have  for  us 
some  new  treatment  which  will  open  for  us 
some  novel  life.  iv.  363. 


For  lo  !   in  hidden  deep  accord, 
The  servant  may  be  like  his  Lord. 
And  Thy  love,  our  love  shining  through, 
May  tell  the  world  that  Thou  art  true, 
Till  those  who  see  us  see  Thee  too. 

A.  L.  WARING. 


JANUARY    5.  5 

There  were  two  thieves  crucified  with  Him, 

MATT,  xxvii.  38. 

'"THE  Saviour  had  left  behind  heaven  ;  He 
had  left  behind  even  the  little  heavenli- 
ness  which  He  had  found  upon  the  earth.  All 
the  disciples  had  forsaken  Him  and  fled.  The 
little  flicker  of  sympathy  which  He  had  seen 
upon  the  face  of  Pilate  He  had  lost  now.  He 
had  come  to  the  company  of  robbers.  There 
were  two  thieves  crucified  with  Him. 

That  is  the  sight  which  we  behold  as  we 
look  at  these  three  crosses  standing  out  sharp 
and  terrible  against  the  sky.  Into  the  darkest 
of  earth's  darkness,  into  the  deepest  conse 
quences  of  sin  where  it  was  possible  for  inno 
cence  to  go,  the  Incarnate  One  has  gone.  Our 
Immanuel,  our  God  with  us,  is  with  the  worst 
of  us  in  His  most  awful  misery.  No  child  of 
God  shall  know  any  suffering  which  this  love 
shall  not  fathom  to  its  depths  with  him. 

i.  197,  198. 

Nay  but  thou  knewest  us,  Lord  Christ,  thou  knowest, 
Well  thou  rememberest  our  feeble  frame, 

Thou  canst  conceive  our  highest  and  our  lowest, 
Pulses  of  nobleness  and  aches  of  shame. 

Then  tho'  our  foul  and  limitless  transgression 
Grows  with  our  growing,  with  our  breath  began, 

Raise  thou  the  arms  of  endless  intercession, 
Jesus,  divinest  when  thou  most  art  man  ! 

FREDERICK  W.  H.  MYERS. 


JANUARY  6. 


/  am  the  Light  of  the  ivorld.  —  JOHN  viii.  12. 

CHRIST  is  unspeakably  great  and  glorious 
in  Himself.  The  glory  which  He  had 
with  His  Father  "  before  the  world  was,"  of 
that  we  can  only  meditate  and  wonder ;  but 
the  glory  which  He  has  had  since  the  world 
was,  the  glory  which  He  has  had  in  relation  to 
the  world,  is  all  bound  up  with  the  world's 
possibilities,  has  all  consisted  in  the  utterance 
and  revelation  and  fulfilment  of  capacities 
which  were  in  the  very  nature  of  the  world  on 
which  His  Light  has  shone.  v.  4,  5. 

Tell  us,  thou  clear  and  heavenly  tongue, 
Where  is  the  Babe  but  lately  sprung? 
Lies  He  the  lily-banks  among  ? 
Or  say,  if  this  new  Birth  of  ours 
Sleeps,  laid  within  some  ark  of  flowers 
Spangled  with  dew-light ;  thou  canst  clear 
All  doubts,  and  manifest  the  where. 
Declare  to  us,  bright  star,  if  we  shall  seek 
Him  in  the  morning's  blushing  cheek, 
Or  search  the  bed  of  spices  through 
To  find  Him  out. 

Star.  —  "  No,  this  ye  need  not  do  ; 
But  only  come,  and  see  Him  rest, 
A  princely  Babe,  in's  mother's  breast." 

Come  then,  come  then,  and  let  us  bring 
Unto  our  pretty  Twelfth-tide  King 

Each  one  his  several  offering. 

HERRICK- 


JANUARY   7.  7 

Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my  Father 's 
business? — TAJKE  ii.  49. 

AS  Mary  went  back  with  her  Son,  realizing 
out  of  His  own  mouth  that  He  was  not  only 
her  Son  but  God's ;  as  she  settled  down  with 
Him  to  their  Nazareth  life  again,  must  not  one 
single  strong  question  have  been  upon  her 
heart,  "  What  does  God  want  this  Son  of  His 
to  be  ?  Oh,  let  me  find  that  out,  that  I  may 
work  with  Him."  And  as  you  go  into  the  house 
where  you  are  to  train  your  soul,  realizing, 
through  some  revelation  that  has  come  to  it, 
that  it  is  God's  soul  as  well  as  yours,  one  strong 
and  single  question  must  be  pressing  on  you 
too,  "What  does  God  want  this  soul  of  mine 
to  be  ?  Oh,  let  me  find  that  out  that  I  may 
work  for  Him."  .  .  .  The  Son  of  Mary  was  a 
revelation  to  the  mother  in  whose  care  He  lived. 
So  a  man's  soul,  his  spiritual  nature  which  is  in 
trusted  to  his  care,  is  a  perpetual  revelation  to 
him.  If  you  can  only  know  that  your  soul  is 
God's  child,  that  He  is  caring  for  it  and  training 
it,  then  it  may  become  to  you  the  source  of  deep 
divine  communications.  God  will  speak  to  you 
through  your  own  mysterious  life.  He  will 
show  you  His  wisdom  and  goodness,  not  in  the 
heaven  above  you,  but  in  the  soul  within  you. 
He  will  make  you  His  fellow-worker  in  that 
which  is  the  most  divine  work  of  His  of  which 
we  can  have  any  knowledge,  the  training  and 
perfecting  of  a  soul.  Iv.  40>  4I. 


JANUARY   8. 


WHAT  will  God  do  this  year  ?  How  will 
He  come  near  to  man  ?  It  may  be,  oh, 
that  it  might  be  !  that  He  will  break  up  this 
awful  sluggishness  of  Christendom,  this  terri 
ble  torpidity  of  the  Christian  Church,  and 
give  us  a  great,  true  revival  of  religion.  It 
may  be  that  He  will  speak  some  great  imperi 
ous  command  to  the  brutal  and  terrible  spirit 
of  war,  and  will  open  the  gate  upon  a  bright 
period  of  peace  throughout  the  world.  It  may 
be  that  He  will  draw  back  the  curtain  and 
throw  some  of  His  light  upon  the  question  of 
how  the  poor  and  the  rich  may  live  together  in 
more  cordial  brotherhood.  It  may  be  that  He 
will  lead  up  from  the  depths  of  their  common 
faith  a  power  of  unity  into  the  sects  of  a 
divided  Christendom.  Perhaps  He  will  smite 
this  selfishness  of  fashionable  life,  and  make  it 
earnest.  Perhaps  by  some  terrible  catastrophe 
He  will  teach  the  nation  that  corruption  is  ruin, 
and  that  nothing  but  integrity  can  make  any 
nation  strong.  Perhaps  this  !  perhaps  that  ! 
We  make  our  guesses,  and  no  man  can  truly 
say.  Only  we  know  that  with  a  world  that 
needs  so  much,  and  with  a  God  who  knows  its 
needs  and  who  loves  it  and  pities  it  so  tenderly, 
there  must  be  in  the  long  year  some  approach 
of  His  life  to  its  life,  some  coming  of  the  Lord  ! 

IV.  364,   365- 

Give  ear,   O  Shepherd  of   Israel,  Thou   that  leadest 

Joseph  like  a  flock  ; 

Thou  that  dwellest  between  the  cherubim,  shine  forth. 
Before  Ephraim  and  Benjamin  and  Manasseh,  stir  up 

Thy  strength, 
And  come  for  salvation  to  us. 

Ps.  LXXX.  i,  •. 


JANUARY  9. 


V\  7"HAT  bulwarks  have  you,  rich,  luxurious 
'  '  men,  built  up  between  yourselves  and 
the  poverty  in  which  hosts  of  your  brethren 
are  living  ?  What  do  you  know,  what  do  you 
want  to  know,  of  the  real  life  of  Jesus,  who 
was  so  poor,  so  radical,  so  full  of  the  sense  of 
everything  just  as  it  is  in  God  ?  You  tremble 
at  the  changes  which  are  evidently  coming. 
You  ask  yourself,  How  many  of  these  first 
things,  these  fundamental  things,  are  going 
to  be  disturbed  ?  Are  property  and  rank  and 
social  precedence  and  the  relation  of  class  to 
class  going  to  be  overturned?  Oh,  you  have 
got  to  learn  that  these  are  not  the  first  things, 
these  are  not  the  fundamental  things  !  Behind 
these  things  stand  justice  and  mercy.  Behind 
everything  stands  God.  He  must  speak  to 
you.  He  will  speak  to  you.  Oh,  do  not  try 
to  shut  out  His  voice.  Listen  to  Him,  that 
you  may  live.  Be  ready  for  any  overturn- 
ings,  even  of  the  things  which  have  seemed 
to  you  most  eternal,  if  by  them  He  can  come 
to  be  more  the  King  of  His  own  earth.  v.  s7. 


Cry  unto  Jesus,  our  Brother  born  to  save  us : 

O  come,  Son  of  Mary, 

Jesu,  our  Redeemer, 

O  come,  King  triumphant,  and  reign  on  earth. 

SELVVYN  iMA 


io  JANUARY   10. 


/ know  how  to  be  abased.  —  PHIL.  iv.  12. 

DOVERTY  seems  to  men  to  be  like  the  old 
fabled  sphinx,  —  a  mysterious  being  who 
has  in  herself  the  secrets  of  life,  but  who  holds 
them  fast,  and  tells  them  only  in  riddles,  and 
devours  the  brave,  unfortunate  adventurers 
who  try  to  guess  at  the  wisdom  she  conceals, 
and  fail.  The  result  is  that  few  men  seek  her 
wisdom  voluntarily.  v.  160. 

From  street  and  square,  from  hill  and  glen, 
Of  this  vast  world  beyond  my  door, 

I  hear  the  tread  of  marching  men, 
The  patient  armies  of  the  poor. 

Not  ermine-clad  or  clothed  in  state, 
Their  title-deeds  not  yet  made  plain, 

But  waking  early,  toiling  late, 
The  heirs  of  all  the  earth  remain. 


The  peasant  brain  shall  yet  be  wise, 
The  untamed  pulse  grow  calm  and  still ; 

The  blind  shall  see,  the  lowly  rise, 
And  work  in  peace  Time's  wondrous  will. 

Some  day,  without  a  trumpet's  call, 
This  news  will  o'er  the  world  be  blown  : 

"  The  heritage  comes  back  to  all ! 
The  myriad  monarchs  take  their  own  !  " 

T.  w.  HIGGINSON 


JANUARY  ii.  ii 


If  I  then,  your  Lord  and  Master,  have  washed 
your  feet,  ye  ought  also  to  wash  one  another's  feet. 

JOHN  xiii.  14. 

STRANGELY,  on  that  solemn  night  the  dis 
ciples  had  fallen  into  an  untimely  quarrel 
which  of  them  should  be  the  greatest,  and 
then  the  Lord  Himself  rose  from  the  table  and 
tied  the  towel  round  His  waist,  and  went  from 
one  wondering  disciple  to  another  and  washed 
the  feet  of  all.  Did  Jesus  compare  Himself 
with  each  of  those  disciples,  and  own  Himself 
the  inferior  of  each  ?  He  only  said  by  His 
exquisite  action  that  there  was  something  in 
every  one  of  them,  in  serving  which  even  His 
divinity  found  no  inappropriate  employment. 
It  was  the  truth  of  His  whole  Incarnation 
wrought  into  a  homely  picture.  i.  346. 

I  saw  a  Saint.  —  How  canst  thou  tell  that  he 

Thou  sawest  was  a  Saint?  — 
I  saw  one  like  to  Christ  so  luminously 

By  patient  deeds  of  love,  his  mortal  taint 
Seemed  made  his  groundwork  for  humility. 

And  when  he  marked  me  downcast  utterly, 

Where  foul  I  sat  and  faint, 
Then  more  than  ever  Christ-like  kindled  he  ; 

And  welcomed  me  as  I  had  been  a  saint, 
Tenderly  stooping  low  to  comfort  me. 

Christ  bade  him,  "  Do  thou  likewise."    Wherefore  he 

Waxed  zealous  to  acquaint 
His  soul  with  sin  and  sorrow,  if  so  be 

He  might  retrieve  some  latent  saint : 
"  Lo,  I,  with  the  child  God  hath  given  to  me!  " 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


12  JANUARY    12. 


"COR  their  sakes  I  sanctify  Myself,"  said 
1  Jesus  ;  and  He  hardly  ever  said  words 
more  wonderful  than  those.  There  was  the 
power  by  which  He  was  holy  ;  the  world  was 
to  be  made  holy,  was  to  be  sanctified  through 
Him.  1  am  sure  that  you  or  1  could  indeed  be 
strengthened  to  meet  some  great  experience  of 
pain  if  we  really  believed  that  by  our  suffering 
we  were  to  be  made  luminous  with  help  to 
other  men.  They  are  to  get  from  us  painlessly 
what  we  have  got  most  painfully  from  God. 
There  is  the  power  of  the  bravest  martyrdom 
and  the  hardest  work  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  i.  I7,  l8. 

Live  thou  deeply  and  wise  ; 

Suffer  as  never  before  ; 

Know  joy,  till  it  cuts  to  the  quick  ; 

Eat  the  apple,  Life,  to  the  core. 

Be  thou  cursed 

By  them  thou  hast  blessed,  by  the  sick 

Whom  thou  in  thy  weakness  nursed. 

With  thy  strength  the  weak  endue  ; 

Be  praised  when  'twere  better  to  blame  ; 

In  the  home  of  thy  spirit  be  true, 

Though  the  voice  of  the  street  cry  shame. 

Be  silent  till  all  is  done, 

Then  return,  in  the  light  of  the  sun, 

And  once  more  sing. 

Oh,  then  fling 

Into  music  thy  soul !  .  .  . 

Tell  the  skies, 

And  the  world,  that  shall  listen  at  last. 

RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER. 


JANUARY    13.  13 

Yc  shall  be  witnesses  unto  Me  both  in  Jerusalem, 
and  in  all  Judea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  tinto  the 
uttermost  part  of  the  earth.  —  ACTS  i.  8. 

YOU  know  the  venerable  argument,  which 
was  never  very  strong,  and  which  halts 
and  stumbles  now  from  age  and  long  dis 
honorable  service  :  "  The  heathen  in  Boston  !  " 
we  are  told.  "Look  how  poor  a  thing  our 
home  religion  is  !  Shall  we  not  make  our  own 
religion  strong,  convert  our  own  masses,  con 
quer  our  own  sins,  before  we  go  around  the 
world  to  preach  our  yet  unappropriated  Gospel 
to  the  heathen  ?  "  It  is  not  always  those  who 
are  most  earnest  or  active  to  complete  our 
home  religion  who  use  such  an  argument.  .  .  . 
Probably  it  is  not  an  argument  with  which 
it  is  worth  while  to  argue,  but  we  cannot  help 
thinking  where,  with  such  an  argument  in 
force,  would  have  been  the  richness  of 
Christian  history !  If  every  land  must  for 
itself  have  made  the  very  best  and  fullest  use 
of  the  Gospel  before  it  could  offer  it  to  any 
other  land,  how  the  great  work  would  have 
halted  and  stayed  in  its  first  littleness  !  Still, 
on  the  desolate  fields  of  Galilee,  or  amid  the 
ruins  of  Jerusalem,  a  few  disconsolate  and 
hopeless  Jews  would  be  telling  to-day  to  one 
another  the  unbelieved  and  unused  story  of  the 
cross.  The  earnest  heart  and  manly  intellect 
of  Paul,  full  of  the  spirit  of  his  Master,  soon 
broke  the  spell  of  such  a  sophistry  as  that,  and 
Europe  saw  the  light  through  the  dim  medium 
of  a  Judaism  which  was  itself  still  more  than 
half  darkness.  JV.  ,87,  isa. 


i4  JANUARY    14. 

The  eartli  is  the  Lonfs,  and  tJic  fulness  thereof ; 
the  world  and  they  that  dwell  therein. 

Ps.  xxiv.  i. 

IT  is  not  the  desire  to  enforce  the  argument 
of  a  Foreign  Missionary  sermon,  it  is  the 
sincere  and  deep  conviction  of  my  soul,  when 
1  declare  that  if  the  Christian  faith  does  not 
culminate  and  complete  itself  in  the  effort  to 
make  Christ  known  to  all  the  world,  that  faith 
appears  to  me  to  be  a  thoroughly  unreal  and 
insignificant  thing,  destitute  of  power  for  the 
single  life,  and  incapable  of  being  convincingly 
proved  to  be  true.  .  .  .  The  opened  world  — 
the  simplified  faith  !  Surely  this  of  all  times 
is  not  the  time  to  disbelieve  in  Foreign  Mis 
sions  ;  surely  he  who  despairs  of  the  power 
of  the  Gospel  to  convert  the  world  to-day, 
despairs  of  the  noontide  just  when  the  sunrise 
is  breaking  out  of  twilight  on  the  earth.  .  .  . 
Distance  has  ceased  to  be  a  hindrance. 
Language  no  longer  makes  men  total  strangers. 
A  universal  commerce  is  creating  common 
bases  and  forms  of  thought.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  the  world  there  is  a  manifest, 
almost  an  immediate,  possibility  of  a  universal 
religion.  No  wonder  that  at  such  a  time  the 
missionary  spirit  which  had  slumbered  for 
centuries  should  have  sprung  upon  its  feet,  and 
the  last  fifty  years  should  have  been  one  of 
the  very  greatest  epochs  in  missionary  labor 
in  the  whole  history  of  the  world. 

IV.  166,  169,   190. 


JANUARY  15.  15 

T  CAN  conceive  that  Joseph  and  Mary  may 
*  have  wondered  why  those  Gentiles  should 
have  come  out  of  the  East  to  worship  their 
Messiah.  But  very  soon  the  enlargement  of 
their  faith  to  be  the  world's  heritage  proved 
its  power  by  making  their  faith  a  far  holier 
thing  for  them  than  it  could  have  been  if  it 
had  remained  wholly  their  own.  Christ  was 
more  thoroughly  theirs  when  through  them 
He  had  been  manifested  to  the  Gentiles.  And 
so  always  the  enlargement  of  the  faith  brings 
the  endearment  of  the  faith,  and  to  give  the 
Saviour  to  others  makes  Him  more  thoroughly 
our  own.  IL  l64. 

Then   1  preached  Christ :   and  when  she  heard  the 
story  — 

Oh,  is  such  triumph  possible  to  men? 
Hardly,  my  King,  had  I  beheld  Thy  glory, 

Hardly  had  known  Thy  excellence  till  then. 

Oft  when  the  Word  is  on  me  to  deliver, 
Opens  the  heaven  and  the  Lord  is  there  ; 

Desert  or  throng,  the  city  or  the  river, 
Melt  in  a  lucid  Paradise  of  air, — 

Only  like  souls  I  see  the  folk  thereunder, 
Bound  who  should  conquer,  slaves  who  should  be 
kings  ; 

Hearing  their  one  hope  with  an  empty  wonder, 
Sadly  contented  in  a  show  of  things. 

Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 
Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet  call,  — 

Oh,  to  save  these  !  to  perish  for  their  saving, 
Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all ! 

F.  W.  H.  MYERS. 


i6  JANUARY   16. 


R  ordinary  life  with  one  another,  what 
in  the  language  of  the  world  we  call 
society,  has  so  left  and  lost  the  spontaneous- 
ness  of  natural  impulse  and  so  failed  to  attain 
the  highest  conception  of  itself  as  the  family 
of  God,  it  so  hangs  fast  in  the  dull  middle 
regions  of  conventional  propriety  and  selfish 
expediency,  that  it  becomes  not  the  fountain, 
but  the  grave,  of  individuality.  INKLUENCF,  ,«,. 

Duty  —  'tis  to  take  on  trust 
What  things  are  good,  and  right,  and  just ; 
And  whether  indeed  they  be  or  be  not, 
Try  not,  test  not,  feel  not,  see  not : 
'Tis  walk  and  dance,  sit  down  and  rise 
By  leading,  opening  ne'er  your  eyes  ; 
Stunt  sturdy  limbs  that  Nature  gave, 
And  be  drawn  in  a  Bath  chair  along  to  the  grave. 
Tis  the  stern  and  prompt  suppressing, 

As  an  obvious  and  deadly  sin, 
All  the  questing  and  the  guessing 
Of  the  soul's  own  soul  within  : 
'Tis  the  coward  acquiescence 

In  a  destiny's  behest, 
To  a  shade  by  terror  made, 
Sacrificing,  aye,  the  essence 

Of  all  that's  truest,  noblest,  best : 
'Tis  the  blind  non-recognition 

Or  of  goodness,  truth,  or  beauty, 
Save  by  precept  and  submission  ; 
Moral  blank,  and  moral  void, 
Lite  at  very  birth  destroyed. 

ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH. 


JANUARY    17.  17 

Lo,  a  great  multitude,  which  no  man  could 
number,  of  all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and  people, 
and  tongues,  stood  before  the  throne,  and  before 
the  Lamb,  clothed  with  white  robes,  and  palms  in 
their  hands;  and  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  saying, 
Salvation  to  our  God  which  sitteth  upon  the  throne 
and  unto  the  Lamb.  —  REV.  vii.  9,  10. 

To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the 
hidden  manna,  and  will  give  him  a  white  stone, 
and  in  the  stone  a  new  name  written,  which  no 
man  knoweth,  saving  he  that  receiveth  it.  —  REV. 
ii.  17. 

1VJOWHERE  do  we  find  on  earth  that  picture 
I  N  of  society  reconstructed  by  the  idea  of 
Jesus,  society  around  the  throne  of  God, 
which  shines  out  upon  us  from  the  mysteri 
ous  promises  of  the  Apocalypse ;  the  glory  of 
which  society  is  to  be  this  —  that  while  the 
souls  stand  in  their  vast  choruses  of  hundreds 
of  thousands,  and  all  chant  the  same  anthems 
and  all  work  together  in  the  same  transcendent 
duties,  yet  each  bears  the  sacred  name  written 
on  the  flesh  of  his  own  forehead,  and  carries 
in  his  hand  a  white  stone,  on  which  is  written 
a  new  name  which  no  man  knoweth  saving  he 
that  receiveth  it.  It  is  individuality  empha 
sized  by  company,  and  not  lost  in  it,  because 
the  atmosphere  in  which  the  company  is  met 
is  the  idea  of  Jesus,  which  is  the  fatherhood 

Of    OOu.  INFLUENCE,  gg,  100. 

And  thither  thoii,  beloved,  and  thither  I 
May  set  our  heart  and  set  our  face,  and  go 
Faint  yet  pursuing  home  on  tireless  feet. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI 


i8  JANUARY    18. 


JESUS  did  not  spend   His  life  in  trying  not 
to  do  wrong.     He  was  too  full  of  the  ear 
nest  love  and  longing  to  do  right  —  to  do  His 
Father's  will. 

And  so  we  see,  by  contrast,  how  many  of 
our  attempts  at  purity  fail  by  their  negative- 
ness.  ...  I  do  think  that  we  break  almost 
all  our  resolutions  not  to  do  wrong,  while  we 
keep  a  large  proportion  of  our  resolutions  that 
we  will  do  what  is  right.  Habit,  which  is  the 
power  by  which  evil  rules  us,  is  only  strong 
in  a  vacant  life.  It  is  the  empty,  swept,  and 
garnished  house  to  which  the  devils  come  back 
to  hold  still  higher  revel.  L  l83 

Time  was,  1  shrank  from  what  was  right 

From  fear  of  what  was  wrong  ; 
I  would  not  brave  the  sacred  tight, 

Because  the  foe  was  strong. 

But  now  I  cast  that  finer  sense 

And  sorer  shame  aside  ; 
Such  dread  of  sin  was  indolence, 

Such  aim  at  heaven  was  pride. 

So  when  my  Saviour  calls,  I  rise 

And  calmly  do  my  best  ; 
Leaving  to  Him,  with  silent  eyes 

Of  hope  and  fear,  the  rest. 

1  step,  I  mount  where  He  has  led  ; 

Men  count  my  haltings  o'er : 
1  know  them  ;  yet  though  self  I  dread, 

I  love  His  precept  more. 

JOHN  HENRY  NtwMAN 


JANUARY    19.  19 


,  the  freedom  with  which  the  gates  of  the 
divine  forgiveness  are  thrown  open  ! 
The  Bible  trembles  and  burns  and  overruns 
with  offers  !  They  crowd  on  one  another. 
Not  waiting  to  be  asked,  not  giving  it  re 
luctantly,  but  following  to  tempt  them  with 
it,  in  His  open  hands,  the  eager  Saviour  brings 
His  free  forgiveness.  —  The  great  wonder  of 
the  Incarnation  was  the  great  miracle  of  that 
free  pardon.  —  As  if  sin,  with  all  its  enormity, 
had  yet  this  accidental  glory,  almost  trans 
figuring  it,  that  it  gave  a  new  license  of  utter 
ance  to  the  unutterable  love.  The  Forgiver 
stands  upon  the  heights  of  the  great  human 
tragedy  and  summons  man  to  be  forgiven. 

Mss. 

Even  with  so  soft  a  surge  and  an  increasing, 
Drunk  of  the  sand  and  thwarted  of  the  clod, 

Stilled  and  astir  and  checked  and  never-ceasing 
Spreadeth  the  great  wave  of  the  grace  of  God. 

Bears  to  the  marishes  and  bitter  places 
Healing  for  hurt  and  for  their  poisons  balm, 

Isle  after  isle  in  infinite  embraces 
Floods  and  enfolds  and  fringes  with  the  palm. 

F.  W.  H.  MYERS 


20  JANUARY    20. 


}\"e  love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us. 

I.  JOHN  iv.  19. 

JOHN  the  Disciple  had  learned  from  Jesus, 
his  Master,  the  truth  of  the  priority  of 
God  —  the  truth  that  before  everything  is 
God.  ...  It  is  as  when  up  the  morning  sky, 
all  coldly  beautiful  with  ordered  ranks  of  cloud 
on  cloud,  is  poured  the  glow  of  sunrise,  and 
every  least  cloud,  still  the  same  in  place  and 
shape,  burns  with  the  transfiguring  splendor 
of  the  sun.  So  is  it  when  the  priority  of  exist 
ence  is  seen  to  rest  in  a  Person,  and  the 
background  of  life  is  God.  Then  every  new 
arrival  instantly  reports  itself  to  Him,  and  is 
described  in  terms  of  its  relationship  to  Him. 
Every  activity  of  ours  answers  to  some  pre 
vious  activity  of  His.  Do  we  hope?  It  is 
because  we  have  caught  the  sound  of  some 
promise  of  His.  Do  we  fear  ?  It  is  because 
we  have  had  some  glimpse  of  the  dreadfulness 
of  getting  out  of  harmony  with  Him.  Are  we 
curious  and  inquiring  ?  It  is  that  we  may 
learn  some  of  His  truth.  Do  we  resist  evil  ? 
We  are  fighting  His  enemies.  Do  we  help 
need  ?  We  are  relieving  His  children.  Do  we 
love  Him  ?  It  is  an  answer  of  gratitude  for 
His  love  to  us.  Do  we  live  ?  It  is  a  pro 
jection  and  extension  of  His  being.  Do  we 
die  ?  It  is  the  going  home  of  our  immortal 
souls  to  Him. 

Oh,  the  wonderful  richness  of  life  when  it  is 
all  thus  backed  with  the  priority  of  God!  It 
is  the  great  illumination  of  all  living. 

V     41      4?- 


JANUARY   21.  21 


I  am  He  that  liveth. —  REV.  i.  18. 

'"THAT  word,  "liveth,"  is  a  word  of  con- 
*  tinuous,  perpetual  life.  It  describes  the 
eternal  existence  which  has  no  beginning  and 
no  end  ;  which,  considered  in  its  purity  and 
perfectness,  has  no  present  and  no  past,  but 
one  eternal  and  unbroken  present — one  eter 
nal  now.  It  is  the  "  I  Am  "  of  the  Jehovah 
who  spoke  to  Moses.  "  He  that  liveth  "  is  the 
Living  One  ;  He  whose  life  is  The  Life,  com 
plete  in  itself,  and  including  all  other  1'ves 
within  itself.  My  dear  friends,  if  anything 
has  come  to  us  to  make  us  feel  what  a  frag 
mentary  thing  our  human  life  is,  I  think  there 
is  no  greater  knowledge  for  us  to  win  than 
that  the  life  of  one  who  loves  us  as  Christ 
loves  us  is  an  eternal  life,  with  the  continu 
ance  and  the  unchangeableness  of  eternity. 

I.    212,    213. 

Strong  Son  of  God,  Immortal  Love, 
Whom  we  that  have  not  seen  Thy  face, 
By  faith,  and  faith  alone,  embrace, 

Believing  where  we  cannot  prove  ! 

Thine  are  these  orbs  of  light  and  shade ; 

Thou  madest  Life  in  man  and  brute  ; 

Thou  madest  Death  ;  and  lo  !  Thy  foot 
Is  on  the  skull  which  Thou  hast  made. 

Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust ; 

Thou  madest  man,  he  knows  not  why  ; 

He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die ; 
And  Thou  hast  made  him  :  Thou  art  just. 

TENNYSON. 


22  JANUARY   22. 


Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits,  sent  forth  to 
minister  for  them  who  shall  be  heirs  of  salvation  ? 

HEB.  i.  14. 

TO  him  to  whom  life  is  but  an  episode,  a 
short  stage  in  the  existence  of  eternity, 
who  is  always  cognizant  of  the  great  surround 
ing  world  of  mystery,  grief  comes  as  angels 
came  to  the  tent  of  Abraham.  Laughter  is 
hushed  before  them.  The  mere  frolic  of  life 
stands  still,  but  the  soul  takes  the  grief  in  as 
a  guest,  meets  it  at  the  door,  kisses  its  hand, 
washes  its  travel-stained  feet,  spreads  its  table 
with  the  best  food,  gives  it  the  seat  by  the  fire 
side,  and  listens  reverently  for  what  it  has  to 
say  about  the  God  from  whom  it  came.  .  .  . 
1  beg  you,  if  God  sends  you  grief,  to  take 
it  largely  by  letting  it  first  of  all  show  you 
how  short  life  is,  and  then  prophesy  eternity. 
Such  is  the  grief  of  which  the  poet  sings  so 
nobly,  — 

Grief  should  be 

Like  joy,  majestic,  equable,  sedate; 
Confirming,  cleansing,  raising,  making  free; 
Strong  to  consume  small  troubles    to  commend 
Great  thoughts,  grave  thoughts,  thoughts  lasting  to 
the  end. 

But  grief,  to  be  all  that,  must  see  the  end  ; 
must  bring  and  forever  keep  with  its  pain 
such  a  sense  of  the  shortness  of  life  that  the 
pain  shall  seem  but  a  temporary  accident,  and 
that  all  that  is  to  stay  forever  after  the  pain 
has  ceased,  the  exaltation,  the  unselfishness, 
the  mystery,  the  nearness  to  God,  shall  seem 
to  be  the  substance  of  the  sorrow.  i.  326,  327. 


JANUARY   23.  23 


Phillips  Brooks  entered  into  Life,  1893. 

Ye,  like  angels,  appear 
Radiant  with  ardor  divine. 

Ye  alight  in  our  van  !     At  your  voice 
Panic,  despair,  flee  a\vay. 
Ye  move  through  the  ranks,  recall 
The  stragglers,  refresh  the  outworn. 
Praise,  re-inspire  the  brave  ! 
Order,  courage,  return  ; 
Eyes  rekindling,  and  prayers, 
Follow  your  steps  as  ye  go. 
Ye  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our  tiles, 
Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 
'Stablish,  continue  our  march, 
On  to  the  bound  of  the  waste, 
On  to  the  City  of  God  ! 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

r~FHE  relation  between  preacher  and  congre- 
1  gation  is  one  of  the  very  highest  pictures 
of  human  companionship  that  can  be  seen  on 
earth.  Its  constant  presence  has  given  Chris 
tianity,  much  of  its  noblest  and  sweetest  color 
in  all  ages.  It  has  much  of  the  intimacy  of  the 
family,  with  something  of  the  breadth  and 
dignity  that  belongs  to  the  State.  It  is  too 
sacred  to  be  thought  of  as  a  contract.  It  is  a 
union  which  God  joins  together  for  purposes 
worthy  of  His  care.  When  it  is  worthily  real 
ized,  who  can  say  that  it  may  not  stretch 
beyond  the  line  of  death,  and  they  who  have 
been  minister  and  people  to  each  other  here  be 
something  holy  and  peculiar  to  each  other  in 
the  City  of  God  forever?  PREACHING.  ?,6. 


24  JANUARY   24. 


Thy  brother  shall  rise  again.  —  JOHN  xi.  23. 

JVAEN'S  souls  leaped  to  that  word  because 
***  they  wanted  to  believe  it,  and  had  not 
dared  wholly  to  believe  it  till  He  showed  them 
that  it  was  true.  And  now  if  we  believe  in 
Him,  we  do  believe  it,  and  death  is  really 
changed  to  us,  and  the  dead  are  really  living 
by  the  assurance  of  the  living  Christ.  In 
those  moments  when  Christ  is  most  real  to 
me,  when  He  lives  in  the  centre  of  my  desires 
and  I  am  resting  most  heavily  upon  His  help, 
in  those  moments  I  am  surest  that  the  dead 
are  not  lost,  that  those  whom  this  Christ,  in 
whom  I  trust,  has  taken  He  is  keeping.  The 
more  He  lives  to  me,  the  more  they  live. 

i.  225, 226. 

Do  we  indeed  desire  the  dead 

Should  still  be  near  us  at  our  side? 

Is  there  no  baseness  we  would  hide? 
No  inner  vileness  that  we  dread  ? 

I  wrong  the  grave  with  fears  untrue  : 
Shall  love  be  blamed  for  want  of  faith  ? 
There  must  be  wisdom  with  great  Death  : 

The  dead  shall  look  me  through  and  through. 

Be  near  us  when  we  climb  or  fall  : 
Ye  watch,  like  God,  the  rolling  hours 
With  larger  other  eyes  than  ours, 

To  make  allowance  for  us  all. 

TENNYSON 


JANUARY   25.  25 


DO  we  not  all  feel  the  change  that  had 
come  between  Paul  crying  submissively 
"  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do  ?  " 
looking  to  an  outside  Christ  for  commandment, 
and  the  same  Paul  crying  "  Not  I  live,  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me!"  rejoicing  in  the  inspi 
ration  of  an  inward  Saviour  ?  This  was  the 
perfect  victory  after  which  Paul  was  always 
longing  so  intensely.  It  did  not  come  per 
fectly  to  him  in  this  world.  It  cannot  to  any 
of  us.  Dependent  as  it  is  upon  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  by  the  soul,  it  cannot  be  perfect  till 
the  soul's  knowledge  of  Christ  shall  be  perfect 
in  heaven.  .  .  .  The  great  privilege  of  the 
Christian  is  deepening  personal  intimacy  with 
Him  who  is  the  Christian's  life,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  All  comes  to  that  at  last.  Christianity 
begins  with  many  motives.  It  all  fastens  itself 
at  last  upon  one  motive,  which  does  not  ex 
clude,  but  is  large  enough  to  comprehend,  all 
that  is  good  in  all  the  rest,  "  That  I  may  know 
Him."  Those  are  Paul's  words.  How  con 
stantly  we  come  back  to  his  large,  rounded 
life,  as  the  picture  of  what  the  Christian  is 
and  becomes.  n.  50,  5i. 

Christ!  I  am  Christ's!  and  let  the  name  suffice  you, 
Ay,  for  me  too  He  greatly  hath  sufficed : 

Lo  with  no  winning  words  I  would  entice  you, 
Paul  had  no  honor  and  no  friend  but  Christ. 

Ay,  for  this  Paul,  a  scorn  and  a  reviling, 

Weak  as  you  know  him  and  the  wretch  you  see, 

Even  in  these  eyes  shall  ye  behold  His  smiling, 
Strength  in  infirmities  and  Christ  in  me. 

F.  W.  H.  MYERS. 


26  JANUARY   26. 

The  things  which   are  seen  are  temporal ;    but 
the  things  which  are  not  seen   are   eternal. 

II.  COR.  iv.   1 8. 

THE  Incarnation  is  the  perpetual  interpre 
tation  of  our  life.  Jesus  cries,  "It  is 
finished,"  on  His  cross,  and  at  once  it  is  evi 
dent  that  that  finishing  is  but  a  beginning ; 
that  it  is  a  breaking  to  pieces  of  the  temporal, 
that  it  may  be  lost  in  the  eternal !  That  cross 
is  the  perpetual  glorification  of  the  shortness 
of  life.  In  its  light  we,  too,  can  stand  by  the 
departing  form  of  our  own  life,  or  of  some 
brother's  life,  and  say,  "  It  is  finished,"  and 
know  that  the  finishing  is  really  a  beginning. 
The  temporary  is  melting  away  like  a  cloud 
in  the  sky,  that  the  great  total  sky  may  all  be 
seen.  The  form  in  which  the  man  has  lived 
is  decaying,  that  the  real  life  of  the  man  may 
be  apparent.  The  fashion  of  this  world  is 
passing  away ;  the  episode,  the  accident  of 
earth  is  over,  that  the  spiritual  reality  may  be 
clear.  It  is  in  the  light  of  the  cross  that  the 
exquisite  picture  of  Shelley,  who  tried  so  hard 
to  be  heathen  and  would  still  be  Christian  in 
his  own  despite,  is  really  realized  : 

The  one  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass  ; 

Heaven's  light  forever  shines  ;  earth's  shadows  fly  ; 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-colored  glass, 

Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity, 
Until  death  tramples  it  to  fragments.          I.  331.  332. 


JANUARY   27.  27 


Lord,  for  the  erring  thought 
Not  into  evil  wrought : 
Lord,  for  the  wicked  will 
Betrayed  and  baffled  still : 
For  the  heart  from  itself  kept, 
Our  thanksgiving  accept. 

For  ignorant  hopes  that  were 
Broken  to  our  blind  prayer : 
For  pain,  death,  sorrow,  sent 
Unto  our  chastisement: 
For  all  loss  of  seeming  good, 

Quicken  our  gratitude. 

w.  D.  HOWELLS. 

OLORD,  by  all  Thy  dealings  with  us, 
whether  of  joy  or  pain,  of  light  or  dark 
ness,  let  us  be  brought  to  Thee.  Let  us  value 
no  treatment  of  Thy  grace  simply  because  it 
makes  us  happy  or  because  it  makes  us  sad, 
because  it  gives  us  or  denies  us  what  we 
want ;  but  may  all  that  Thou  sendest  us  bring 
us  to  Thee,  that  knowing  Thy  perfectness, 
we  may  be  sure  in  every  disappointment  that 
Thou  art  still  loving  us,  and  in  every  darkness 
that  Thou  art  still  enlightening  us,  and  in 
every  enforced  idleness  that  Thou  art  still 
using  us ;  yea,  in  every  death  that  Thou  art 
giving  us  life,  as  in  His  death  Thou  didst  give 
life  to  Thy  Son,  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 
Amen.  v.  323. 


28  JANUARY   28. 


That  light 

Fringing  the  far  hills,  all  so  fair,  so  fair, 
Is  it  not  dawn  ?    I  am  dying,  but  'tis  dawn. 

Upon  the  mountains  I  behold  the  feet 
Of  my  Beloved  :  let  us  forth  to  meet ' ' 
Death. 

This  is  death.     I  see  the  light  no  more ; 
1  sleep. 

But  like  a  morning  bird  my  soul 
Springs  singing  upward,  into  the  deeps  of  heaven, 
Through  world  on  world  to  follow  Infinite  Day. 

DINAH  MULOCH  CRAIK. 

HOW  shall  1  bind  myself  to  eternity  except 
by  giving  myself  to  Him  who  is  eternal 
in  obedient  love  ?  Obedient  love !  Loving 
obedience  i  That  is  what  binds  the  soul  of 
the  less  to  the  soul  of  the  greater  everywhere. 
I  give  myself  to  the  eternal  Christ,  and  in  His 
eternity  I  find  my  own.  In  His  service  I  am 
bound  to  Him,  and  the  shortness  of  that  life, 
whose  limitations  in  any  way  shut  me  out 
from  Him,  becomes  an  inspiration,  not  a  bur 
den  to  me.  Oh,  my  dear  friends,  you  who 
with  Christian  faith  have  seen  a  Christian  die, 
tell  me,  was  not  this  short  life  then  revealed 
to  you  in  all  its  beauty  ?  Did  you  not  see 
completely  that  no  life  was  too  long  which 
Christ  had  filled  with  the  gift  and  knowledge 
of  Himself ;  no  life  was  too  short  which  de 
parted  from  the  earth  only  to  go  and  be  with 
Him  in  Heaven  forever  ?  L  332 


JANUARY   29.  29 


OUR  souls  are  sick  with  the  sight  of  hunger 
and  nakedness  and  want.  .  .  .  Cannot 
He  who  fed  the  hungry  Jews  feed  these  hungry 
Americans  ?  We  are  ready  to  doubt  the  old 
story  of  His  mercy,  or  to  think  He  has  forgotten 
to  be  gracious  and  ceased  to  care  for  these 
modern  nations  whom  He  has  not  "chosen." 
And  then,  just  as  we  are  ready  to  give  up  to 
despair  in  one  or  other  of  these  forms,  we 
catch  a  glimpse  of  something  better,  of  some 
thing  which  makes  us  see  that  the  manna  and 
the  miraculous  loaves  and  fishes,  made  per 
petual,  would  be  demoralizing  and  degrading. 
Some  light  comes  on  the  necessity  and  nobility 
of  struggle.  We  see  the  greater  glory  of  the 
new  miracle  —  the  miracle  of  the  advancing 
civilization,  whose  purpose  is  not  to  do  away 
with  struggle,  but  to  make  the  conditions  of 
struggle  fair  and  the  prospects  of  struggle 
hopeful.  Into  the  spirit  of  that  miracle  we 
cast  ourselves,  not  expecting  to  see  the  world's 
misery  suddenly  removed,  but  sure  that  at  last 
the  world,  in  and  through  its  misery,  will  tri 
umph  over  its  misery  by  patience  and  diffused 
intelligence  and  mutual  respect  and  brotherly 
kindness  and  the  grace  of  God.  v.  30,  31. 

I  have  considered  the  days  of  old  — 

The  years  of  ancient  times. 
Will  the  Lord  cast  off  forever? 

Hath  God  forgotten  to  be  gracious  ? 

Hath  He  in  anger  shut  up  His  tender  mercies? 

And  1  said,  This  is  my  infirmity ; 
But  1  will  remember  the  years  of 

The  right  hand  of  the  Most  High. 

PS.   LXXVII.  5-10. 


30  JANUARY   30. 


MEN  say,  "  The  world  has  been  disturbed 
before.  Classes  have  clashed  with  one 
another.  Governed  and  governors,  employed 
and  employers,  rich  and  poor,  have  come  to 
blows  in  other  days,  but  things  have  al 
ways  adjusted  themselves  again.  The  stronger 
have  grown  kinder  ;  the  weaker  have  grown 
humbler ;  the  paternal  governor  has  grown 
more  fatherly  ;  the  obedient  subject  has 
grown  more  filial,  and  things  have  gone  on 
again  as  smoothly  as  before."  "  So  shall  it  be 
again,"  men  say.  That  is  what  they  expect 
as  the  outcome  of  all  this  conflict.  But  other 
men  see  clearer.  ...  It  is  not  going  to  be 
enough  that  the  strong  should  once  more  grow 
kinder  and  the  weak  grow  humbler.  The  bal 
ance  and  distribution  of  strength  and  weak 
ness  is  being  altered,  must  be  altered  more 
and  more.  The  sources  of  artificial  strength 
and  artificial  weakness  are  being  dried  up. 
Governors  and  governed,  employers  and  em 
ployed,  are  coming  to  be  coworkers  for  the 
same  ends.  Not  the  old  mercies  repeated,  but 
new  mercies  going  vastly  deeper  than  the  old, 
—  these  are  what  men  are  beginning  to  see 
that  the  world  is  needing  and  that  God  is  giv 
ing  to  the  world  He  loves.  v.  30. 

Every  man  is  his  brother's  bane, 
Where  sloth  brings  honor  and  labor  scorn. 

Of  fellowship  yet  shall  the  earth  be  fain, 
Hasten  we,  hasten  the  happy  morn. 

Life  is  hopeless  in  park  and  slum, 
Where  sloth  brings  honor  and  labor  scorn. 

P>\\  shall  be  well  in  the  days  to  come, 
Hasten  we,  hasten  the  happy  morn  ! 

C.  W.  BECKETT. 


JANUARY    31.  31 


BUT  before  I  seriously  undertake  to  make  of 
him  [the  poor  man]  an  independent,  in 
telligent,  struggling  brother-man,  to  wake  him 
from  his  torpor,  to  set  him  on  his  feet,  to  kindle 
in  his  soul  that  fire  which  keeps  my  own  soul 
full  of  light  and  warmth,  I  must  have  some 
thing  more  than  the  impulse  of  a  wise  econ 
omy.  This  needs  a  sympathy  which  makes 
his  life,  with  all  its  needs  and  miseries,  my 
own.  It  demands  of  me  to  wrestle  with  his 
enemies,  to  undertake  a  fight  for  him  which 
he  is  not  yet  ready  to  undertake  himself,  to 
sacrifice  myself  that  I  may  make  his  true  self 
live.  „.  343. 


He  stood  upon  the  world's  broad  threshold  ;  wide 
The  din  of  battle  and  of  slaughter  rose  ; 
He  saw  God  stand  upon  the  weaker  side, 
That  sank  in  seeming  loss  before  its  foes  ; 
Many  there  were  who  made  great  haste  and  sold 
Unto  the  cunning  enemy  their  swords  ; 
He  scorned  their  gifts  of  fame,  and  power,  and  gold, 
And,  underneath  their  soft  and  flowery  words, 
Heard  the  cold  serpent  hiss  ;  therefore  he  went 
And  humbly  joined  him  to  the  weaker  part, 
Fanatic  named,  and  fool,  yet  well  content 
So  he  could  be  the  nearer  to  God's  heart, 
And  feels  its  solemn  pulses  sending  blood 
Through  all  the  widespread  veins  of  endless  good. 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 


32  FEBRUARY    i. 


T~"HERE  are  some  things  of  the  individual  life 
*  which  the  individual  cannot  get  save  in 
the  company  of  fellow-men.  There  are  some 
parts  of  his  own  true  life  always  in  his 
brethren's  keeping,  for  which  he  must  go  to 
them.  That  the  individual  may  find  and  be 
his  own  truest  and  fullest  self,  Jesus,  his 
Master,  leads  him  to  his  fellows.  The  wed 
ding  guest  at  Cana,  the  Pharisee  at  Levi's 
table,  the  sisters  with  their  restored  brother, 
the  brothers  of  the  Lord  in  the  house  of  the 
carpenter,  —  all,  just  as  soon  as  Jesus  sancti 
fied  and  blessed  the  society  in  which  they 
lived,  saw  coming  to  them  as  it  were  out  of 
the  heart  of  that  society  a  selfhood  which 
no  solitary  contemplation  could  have  gained. 
Each  of  them  found  his  Father  among  his 
brethren  —  reached  God  through  the  revela 
tion  Of  Other  human  lives.  INFLUEMCK.QT. 

I  tell  you  this  for  a  wonder,  that  no  man  shall  then  be 

glad 
Of  his  fellow's  fall  and  mishap  to  snatch  at  the  work 

he  had. 

Then  all  mine  and  all  thine  shall  be  ours,  and  no  more 

shall  any  man  crave 
For  riches  that  serve  for  nothing  but  to  fetter  a  friend 

for  a  slave. 

For  all  these  shall  be  ours  and  all  men's,  nor  shall  any 

lack  a  share 
Of  the  toil  and  the  gain  of  living  in  the  days  when  the 

world  grows  fair. 

WILLIAM  MORRIS. 


FEBRUARY   2.  33 

\_Simeon~\  said,  Lord  now  lettest  Thou  Thy 
servant  depart  in  peace,  according  to  Thy  word  : 
For  mine  eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation,  which 
Thou  hast  prepared  before  the  face  of  all  people ; 
A  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,  and  the  glory  of 
Thy  people  Israel.  —  LUKE  ii.  29-32. 

THE  waiting  Jewish  race  —  the  men  and 
women  —  nay,  the  whole  world  which  is 
seen  peering  into  the  darkness,  sure  that  some 
light  is  coming  —  Zacharias,  Mary,  Simeon, 
Anna,  Herod,  Peter,  and  Andrew  —  every  man 
and  woman  of  whom  we  read,  is  ready  for  the 
wonder  of  recognition,  the  wonder  which  comes 
with  the  fulfilment  of  their  dreams  and  hopes 
and  fears,  .  .  .  the  long-imagined,  long-ex 
pected,  half-despaired-of  manifestation  of  God 

in  human  life.  CHRISTMAS  SERMON,  7,  8. 

To  every  Christian  there  come  times  when 
all  the  strangeness  disappears  from  the  divine 
humanity  which  stands  radiant  at  the  centre 
of  his  faith.  He  finds  it  hard  to  believe  in  him 
self  and  in  his  brethren  perhaps  ;  but  that 
Christ  should  be  and  should  be  Christ  appears 
the  one  reasonable,  natural,  certain  thing  in 
all  the  universe.  In  Him  all  broken  lines  unite  ; 
in  Him  all  scattered  sounds  are  gathered  into 
harmony.  .  .  .  The  day  of  our  salvation  has 
not  come  till  every  voice  brings  us  one  mes 
sage  ;  till  Christ,  the  Light  of  the  world, 
everywhere  reveals  to  us  the  divine  secret  of 
our  life  ;  till  everything  without  joins  with  the 
consciousness  all  alive  within,  and  "the  Spirit 
itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirits  that  we 
are  the  children  of  God."  v.  15, 23. 


34  FEBRUARY    3. 

When  He   came  near,  He  beheld  the  city,    and 
wept  over  it.  —  LUKE  xix.  41. 

TELL  me  what  becomes  of  the  hard  young 
man,  proud  of  his  unsensitiveness,  even 
pretending  to  be  more  unsensitive  than  he  is, 
incapable  of  enthusiasm,  incapable  of  tears  ; 
what  becomes  of  him  beside  the  knightliness 
of  a  sorrow  such  as  that  ?  The  little  child  is 
sensitive  without  a  thought  of  effort.  The  old 
man  often  feels  the  joy  and  pain  of  men  as  if 
the  long  years  had  made  it  his  own.  But  in 
between,  the  young  man  is  hardened  by  self- 
absorption  ;  when  all  the  time  he  ought  — 
with  his  imagination,  with  his  power  to  real 
ize  things  he  has  not  been  nor  seen  —  ta 
go  responsive  through  the  world,  answering 
quickly  to  every  touch,  knowing  the  burdened 
man's  burden  just  because  of  the  unpressed 
lightness  of  his  own  shoulders,  feeling  the  sick 
man's  pain  all  the  more  because  his  own  flesh 
never  knew  an  ache,  buoyant  through  all  with 
his  unconquerable  hope,  overcoming  the  world 
with  his  exuberant  faith,  and  farthest  from 
sentimentality  by  the  abundance  and  freedom 
of  the  sentiment  which  fills  him.  Be  sure  that 
there  is  no  true  escape  from  softness  in  making 
yourself  hard.  It  is  like  freezing  your  arm  to 
keep  it  from  decay.  Only  by  filling  it  with 
blood  and  giving  it  the  true  flexibility  of  health, 
so  only  is  it  to  be  preserved  from  the  corrup 
tion  which  you  fear.  Be  not  afraid  of  senti 
ment,  but  only  of  untruth.  Trust  your  sen 
timents,  and  so  be  a  man.  v.  gs.  90. 


FEBRUARY   4.  35 


Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  Him 
only  shalt  tho u  serve.  —  MATT.  iv.  10. 

"\  \  7OE  to  the  man  who  loses  the  faculty  of 
worship,  the  faculty  of  honoring  and 
loving  and  fearing  not  merely  something  better 
than  himself,  but  something  which  is  the 
absolute  best,  the  perfect  good,  —  his  God  ! 
The  life  is  gone  out  of  his  life  when  this  is 
gone.  There  is  a  cloud  upon  his  thought,  a 
palsy  on  his  action,  a  chill  upon  his  love. 
Because  you  must  worship,  therefore  you  must 
have  God.  n.  I03. 

Alone  Lord  God,  in  whom  our  trust  and  peace, 
Our  love  and  our  desire,  glow  bright  with  hope  ; 
Lift  us  above  this  transitory  scope 

Of  earth,  these  pleasures  that  begin  and  cease, 

This  moon  which  wanes,  these  seasons  which  decrease ; 
We  turn  to  Thee  ;  as  on  an  eastern  slope 
Wheat  feels  the  dawn  beneath  night's  lingering  cope, 

Bending  and  stretching  downward  ere  it  sees. 

Alone  Lord  God,  we  see  not  yet  we  know  ; 

By  love  we  dwell  with  patience  and  desire, 
And  living  so  and  so  desiring  pray  : 
Thy  will  be  done  in  earth  as  heaven  to-day ; 

As  yesterday  it  was,  to-morrow  so  ; 

Love  offering  love  on  love's  self-feeding  fire. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


36  FEBRUARY    5. 

F)ICTURE  Jesus  of  Nazareth  set  down  in 
*  Rome  with  all  the  flashing  splendor  of 
imperial  power  all  around  Him  ;  or  in  Athens, 
with  the  wisdom  of  the  philosophers  on  every 
side.  Would  the  young  Jew  have  cast  His 
faith  away?  Too  real  for  Him  the  visions  that 
had  come  to  Him  in  Nazareth  !  Too  real  for 
Him  the  glory  of  His  Father,  which  had  filled 
His  Father's  house  !  He  would  have  laid  fresh 
hold  upon  that  truth  and  love  which  He  had 
never  so  needed  until  now.  He  would  have 
stood  undazzled  in  the  Roman  glory,  unpuzzled 
in  the  Grecian  wisdom,  because  He  would  have 
known  that  in  His  heart  He  carried  the  light  by 
which  they  should  give  light  to  Him.  It  would 
have  been  like  David  calmly  saying  in  the 
presence  of  the  terrors  of  Goliath,  "  The  Lord 
that  delivered  me  out  of  the  paw  of  the  lion  and 
out  of  the  paw  of  the  bear,  He  will  deliver  me 
out  of  the  hand  of  this  Philistine."  m.  Io8,  Iog. 

How  amiable  are  Thy  tabernacles,  O  Lord  of  Hosts ! 
My  soul  longeth,  yea,  even  fainteth  for  the  courts  of 
the  Lord. 

For  a  day  in  Thy  courts  is  better  than  a  thousand. 
I  had  rather  be  a  doorkeeper  in  the  house  of  my  God, 

than  to  d\vell  in  the  tents  of  wickedness. 
For  the  Lord  God  is  a  sun  and  shield :  the  Lord  will 

give  grace  and  glory : 
No  good  thing  will  He  withhold  from  them  that  walk 

uprightly. 
O  Lord  of  Hosts,  blessed   is  the   man   that  trusteth 

in  Thee.  PS.  LXXXIV. 


FEBRUARY   6.  37 


Thou  shalt  hide  than  in  the  secret  of  Th  v  presence 
from  the  pride  of  man.  Thou  shalt  keep  them 
secretly  in  a  pavilion  from  the  strife  of  tongues. 

Ps.  xxxi.  20. 

This  tract  which  the  river  of  Time 

Now  flows  through  with  us,  is  the  plain. 

Gone  is  the  calm  of  its  earlier  shore. 

Border'J  by  cities,  and  hoarse 

With  a  thousand  cries,  is  its  stream. 

And  we  on  its  breast,  our  minds 

Are  confused  as  the  cries  which  we  hear, 

Changing  and  shot  as  the  sights  which  we  see. 

And  we  say  that  repose  has  fled 
Forever  the  course  of  the  river  of  Time. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

OF  how  much  of  our  best  society  they  seem 
to  be  the  exact  description  ;  of  how  many 
heartless  houses  filled  with  a  poor  pretence  of 
social  life,  David's  words  tell  the  whole  story. 
"  The  pride  of  man  and  the  strife  of  tongues," 
the  lack  of  humility,  the  lack  of  love,  the  lack 
of  peace  !  To  live  in  such  a  world,  and  yet  to 
keep  a  soul  in  us  at  all,  is  very  hard.  We 
must  have  something  under  and  beyond  such 
a  world  to  flee  to  to  renew  our  life,  to  really 
recreate  ourselves.  That  security  and  recrea 
tion  of  our  life  cannot  come  except  in  the  source 
from  which  our  life  first  came.  We  must  go 
back  to  God.  i  °0 


38  FEBRUARY  7. 


I  will  hear  what  the  Lord  God  may  say  in  me. 

Blest  is  the  soul  that  hears  its  Lord's  voice  speaking 

within  it, 

And  takes  the  word  of  comfort  from  His  lips. 
Blest  are  the  ears  that  catch  the  throbbing  whisper  of 

the  Lord, 

And  turn  not  to  the  buzzings  of  the  passing  world ; 
That  listen  not  to  voices  from  without, 
But  to  the  truth  that  teaches  from  within. 
Blest  are  the  eyes 
That,  shut  to  outer  things, 
Are  busied  with  the  inner  life. 
Blest  are  they  who  penetrate  within, 
And  more  and  more  by  daily  use 
Strive  to  prepare  themselves 
To  take  the  heavenly  mysteries. 
And  blest  are  they  who  try  to  give  their  time  to  God, 
And  shake  them  free  from  all  the  burden  of  the  world. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 

T^O  put  aside  everything  that  hinders  the 
highest  from  coming  to  us,  and  then  to 
call  to  us  that  highest  which,  nay,  Who  is 
always  waiting  to  come,  — fasting  and  prayer, 
—this,  as  the  habit  and  tenor  of  a  life,  is 
noble.  As  an  occasional  effort  even,  if  it  is 
real  and  earnest,  it  makes  the  soul  freer  for  the 
future.  A  short  special  communion  with  the 
unseen  and  eternal,  prevents  the  soul  from 
ever  being  again  so  completely  the  slave  of  the 
things  of  sense  and  time.  n.  2I4. 


FEBRUARY  8.  39 


Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every 
word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God.  — 
MATT.  iv.  4. 

EVERY  word  of  God  is  both  truth  and  duty, 
revelation  and  commandment.  He  who 
takes  any  new  word  of  God  completely  gets 
both  a  new  truth  and  a  new  duty.  He,  then, 
who  lives  by  every  word  of  God,  is  a  man  who 
is  continually  seeing  new  truth  and  accepting 
the  duties  that  arise  out  of  it.  And  it  is  for 
this,  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  truth  and  doing 
its  attendant  duty,  that  he  is  willing  to  give  up 
the  pleasures  of  sense,  and  even,  if  need  be, 
to  give  up  the  bodily  life  to  which  the  pleas 
ures  of  sense  belong.  i.  273. 

It  is  not  happiness  I  seek, 
Its  name  I  hardly  dare  to  speak  : 
It  is  not  made  for  man  on  earth, 
And  Heaven  alone  can  give  it  birth. 

Fixed  duty  claiming  every  power, 
And  human  love  to  charm  each  hour,  — 
These,  these,  my  soul,  make  Blessedness  ; 
I  ask  no  more,  I  seek  no  less. 

And  yet  I  know  these  are  too  much  ; 
My  very  being's  life  they  touch, 
Without  them  all,  oh  !  let  me  still 
Find  Blessedness  in  God's  dear  will. 

LOUISA  J.  HALL. 


40  FEBRUARY  9. 


CHRIST  entered  into  our  shame.  Deep 
^^  into  its  very  heart  He  entered.  The 
blackness  of  its  darkness  was  around  Him. 
But  the  purpose  of  His  sacrifice  was  that  we 
might  be  brought  to  Him.  We  have  not  learnt 
the  whole  if  we  have  only  felt  His  condescen 
sion.  Not  till  He  who  has  stooped  to  us  has 
lifted  us  up  to  Him  must  we  be  satisfied.  Not 
till  He  who  hangs  upon  the  cross  beside  us  has 
said  to  us,  "  To-day  thou  shalt  be  with  me  in 
Paradise."  i.  20Q. 


We  know  the  way :  thank  God  who  hath  showed  us 

the  way ! 

Jesus  Christ  our  Way  to  beautiful  Paradise, 
Jesus  Christ  the  Same  for  ever,  the  Same  to-day. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


"  Coelum  patria,  Christus  via,"  says  the  old 
motto:  "Heaven  the  country,  Christ  the 
way."  But  it  is  true  that  He  who  is  the  way 
is  also  the  life  into  which  the  way  leads ;  and 

Christ  must  be  country  as  well  as  path. 

i.  306. 


FEBRUARY    10.  41 

TO  know  first  of  all  and  deepest  of  all,  that 
that  battle  which  goes  on  within  us  is 
God's  battle,  is  of  supreme  importance.  What 
are  our  sins  ?  What  is  your  selfishness,  your 
untruthfulness,  your  cruelty  ?  Is  it  something 
which  hurts  and  hinders  you?  Indeed  it  is. 
But  beyond  that  it  is  something  which  usurps 
a  kingdom  which  belongs  to  God.  It  is  His 
enemy.  And  every  movement  of  your  con 
science,  every  sense  of  usurpation  and  of 
incongruity,  is  not  merely  the  revolt  of  your 
own  outraged  soul.  It  is  also  the  claim  of  the 
true  King  upon  His  Kingdom.  It  is  the  sound 
of  the  monarch's  trumpet  summoning  the  re 
bellious  castle  to  surrender.  Believe  this,  and 
what  a  dignity  enters  into  the  moral  struggle 
of  our  life.  It  is  no  mere  restless  fermentation, 
the  disturbed  nature  out  of  harmony  with  itself. 
It  is  God,  with  the  great  moral  gravitation  of 
universal  righteousness,  dragging  this  stray 
and  wayward  atom  back  into  Himself.  O  deep 
divine  mysterious  process,  that  goes  on  wher 
ever  in  silent  chamber  or  in  crowded  street  the 
humbled  penitent  lies  prostrate  in  the  dust,  or 
the  resolute  struggler  stands  wrestling  with 
his  temptation  !  iv.  276. 

Do  not  I  hate  them,  O  Lord,  that  hate  Thee? 

And  am  not  I  grieved  with  those  that  rise  up  against 

Thee? 
I  hate  them  with   perfect  hatred  ;    I  count  them  mine 

enemies. 
Search  me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart:  try  me,  and 

know  my  thoughts : 
And  see  if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in  me,  and  lead  me 

in  the  way  everlasting.  PS.  cxxxix.  21-24. 


42  FEBRUARY    n. 


Then  the  devil  leave th  Him  ;  and,  behold,  angels 
came  and  ministered  unto  Him. —  MATT.  iv.  1 1. 

JESUS  had  seen  Satan.  He  had  seen  with 
^  what  greedy  and  confident  eyes  Satan 
looked  at  that  humanity  of  His,  as  if  it  were 
something  that  belonged  to  Him.  Nay,  in  His 
own  humanity  He  had  felt  a  treacherous  some 
thing,  that  was  ready  to  respond  to  Satan  and 
to  own  his  mastery.  Strong  and  victorious  He 
came  away.  But  was  there  no  new  solemn 
insight  into  this  humanity  which  He  had  taken? 
Was  not  the  Incarnation  more  than  ever  awful 
to  the  Incarnate  One  ?  He,  the  sinless,  had 
gone  up  and  looked  over  the  edge  into  the 
deepest  depths  of  sin.  He  needed  the  minis 
try  of  angels,  and  He  surely  came  down  the 
mountain  serious  and  sad.  And  so  it  is  with 
you,  when  you  follow  your  Lord  into  that  ex 
perience.  It  may  be  that  you  come  out  by 
His  grace  pure  and  thankful,  but  you  come  out 
"like  Him,  serious  and  sad,  for  you  have  looked 

down  as  He  looked  into  the  possibility  of  sin. 

i.  255, 256. 

O  Father,  out  of  whose  Hand  none  is  able  to  pluck 

Thine  own, 

Have  pity  on  us,  and  be  our  defence  against 
The  hosts  that  rise  up  against  us. 

BOOK  OF  LITANIES.    NEALE. 


FEBRUARY    12.  43 


But  often,  in  the  world's  most  crowded  streets, 

But  often,  in  the  din  of  strife, 

There  rises  an  unspeakable  desire 

After  the  knowledge  of  our  buried  life, 

A  thirst  to  spend  our  fire  and  restless  force 

In  tracking  out  our  true,  original  course  ; 

A  longing  to  inquire 

Into  the  mystery  of  this  heart  which  beats 

So  wild,  so  deep  in  us,  —  to  know 

Whence  our  thoughts  come  and  where  they  go. 

And  many  a  man  in  his  own  breast  then  delves, 

But  deep  enough,  alas,  none  ever  mines  ! 

Yet  still,  from  time  to  time,  vague  and  forlorn, 
From  the  soul's  subterranean  depths  upborne 
As  from  an  infinitely  distant  land, 
Come  airs,  and  floating  echoes,  and  convey 
A  melancholy  into  all  our  day. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


T  UST  at  the  outset  of  our  work,  to  try  us 
*-*  whether  we  are  good  for  our  work,  God's 
Spirit  takes  us  into  some  solitude,  some  expe 
rience  which,  whether  it  be  enacted  far  off  in 
the  woods,  or  in  the  very  centre  of  a  crowded 
street,  makes  us  realize  for  the  first  time  that 
our  deepest  life  is  alone,  is  ours  and  no  other 
man's  ;  that  we  cannot  live  in  our  fathers  and 
our  mothers  ;  that  we  must  live  for  ourselves. 
That  is  our  wilderness,  —  that  first  realization 
of  our  individuality.  i.  269 


44  FEBRUARY    13. 


it  is  evident  that  in  those  terrible 
hours  (of  the  Temptation)  the  whole 
nature  of  Jesus  was  submitted  to  a  fearful 
struggle,  and  that,  as  not  the  least  among  the 
elements  that  made  up  the  ordeal,  His  intel 
lectual  judgments  were  shaken,  His  knowledge 
of  truth  was  invaded  by  tumultuous  doubt, 
His  sight  of  His  Father  was  obscured,  —  yet, 
at  the  last,  and  as  the  sum  of  all,  the  question 
was  not  one  of  intelligence  but  of  will.  It  was 
a  choice  of  obediences  that  made  the  real  crisis. 
It  was  the  rejection  of  Satan's  "  Fall  down 
and  worship  me,"  and  the  clear  acceptance  of 
"Thou  shalt  serve  the  Lord  thy  God,"  that 
marked  the  victory.  "  Then  the  Devil  leaveth 
Him,  and  behold  angels  came  and  ministered 
unto  Him."  The  moment  that  the  obedience 
of  the  life  was  established,  the  mental  tumult 
settled  into  peace  within  it.  INFLUENCE,  229. 


I  worship  thee,  sweet  will  of  God ! 

And  all  thy  ways  adore, 
And  every  day  1  live  I  seem 

To  love  thee  more  and  more. 

Thou  wert  the  end,  the  blessed  rule 
Of  our  Saviour's  toils  and  tears  ; 

Thou  wert  the  passion  of  His  Heart 
Those  three  and  thirty  years. 

F.  W.  FABER. 


FEBRUARY    14.  45 


//  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone. 

MATT.  iv.  4. 

WHAT  a  man  finds  in  his  own  conscious 
ness,  he  is  strengthened  by  being  able 
also  to  recognize  in  the  whole  history  of  his 
race.  "  It  is  written  "  long  ago,  this  which  he 
is  doing  now.  He  is  only  tracing  over  with 
his  blood  the  unfaded  characters  which  other 
men  have  written  in  theirs.  It  is  not  a  mere 
whim  of  his,  this  conviction  that  it  is  better  to 
serve  God  than  to  eat  bread.  It  is  the  cor 
porate  conviction  of  mankind.  That  is  a  very 
mysterious  support,  but  it  is  a  real  one.  It 
plants  the  weak  tree  of  your  will  or  mine  into 
the  rich  soil  of  humanity.  Do  not  lose  that 
strength.  Do  not  so  misread  history  that  it 
shall  seem  to  you  when  you  try  to  do  right  as 
if  you  were  the  first  man  that  ever  tried  it. 
Put  yourself  with  your  weak  little  struggle 
into  the  company  of  all  the  strugglers  in  all 
time.  Recognize  in  your  little  fight  against 
your  avarice,  or  your  untruthfulness,  or  your 
laziness,  only  one  skirmish  in  that  battle  whose 
field  covers  the  earth,  and  whose  clamor  rises 
and  falls  from  age  to  age,  but  never  wholly 
dies.  See  in  the  perpetual  struggle  of  good 
and  evil  that  the  impulse  after  good  is  eternal, 
and  the  higher  needs  are  always  asserting 
their  necessity.  In  their  persistent  assertion 
read  the  prophecy  of  their  final  success  and 
take  courage.  i.  277. 


46  FEBRUARY    15. 


is  at  once  the  inspiration  of  the 
->  individual  and  also  the  assertion  —  such 
as  the  world  has  never  heard  before — of  the 
identity  of  man.  .  .  .  Here  are  you,  seemingly 
insignificant,  not  making  much  of  yourself,  not 
seeming  to  be  worthy  to  be  made  much  of. 
Oh,  if  you  could  know  two  things  about  your 
self :  first,  that  you  are  a  different  creature 
from  any  that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and 
second,  that  you  are  a  true  utterance  of  the 
same  spirit  of  life  out  of  which  sprang  Isaiah 
and  Saint  John.  v.  66,67. 

Take  the  least  man  of  all  mankind,  as  1  ; 
Look  at  his  head  and  heart,  find  how  and  why 
He  differs  from  his  fellows  utterly  : 


When  you  acknowledge  that  one  world  could  do 
All  the  diverse  work,  old  yet  ever  new, 
Divide  us,  each  from  other,  me  from  you,  — 

Wny  where's  the  need  of  temple,  when  the  walls 
O'  the  world  are  that  ?    What  use  of  swells  and  falls 
From  Levites'  choir,  Priests'  cries,  and  trumpet-calls  ? 

That  one  Face,  far  from  vanish,  rather  grows, 

Or  decomposes  but  to  recompose, 

Become  my  universe  that  feels  and  knows  ! 

BROWNING. 


FEBRUARY    16.  47 


Then  said  Jesus,  Father,  forgive  them  ;  for  they 
know  not  what  they  do.  —  LUKE  xxiii.  34. 

CLOSE  to  His  Father  always,  ...  He  was 
hid  in  the  secret  of  His  Father's  pres 
ence.  We  cannot  know  His  peace.  It  must 
have  been  so  absolute.  There  must  have 
been  such  a  pity  in  His  heart  when  they 
tormented  Him,  when  they  tied  Him  to  a 
column  and  scourged  Him,  when  they  nailed 
Him  to  the  cross  at  last,  and  all  the  while  were 
looking  to  see  Him  give  way  and  tremble,  and 
all  the  while  the  soul  which  they  thought  they 
were  reaching  and  torturing  was  far  off,  be 
yond  their  reach,  hid  in  the  secret  of  God's 
presence,  hid  in  God.  It  was  as  if  men  flung 
water  at  the  stars  and  tried  to  put  them  out, 
and  the  stars  shone  on  calmly  and  safely  and 
took  no  notice  of  their  persecutors,  except  to 
give  them  light.  L  96i  97. 

May  forgiveness,  O  Lord,  we  beseech  Thee,  proceed 
from  the  Most  High.  May  it  succour  us  in  our  misery  ; 
may  it  cleanse  us  from  our  offences  ;  may  it  be  granted 
to  penitents  ;  may  it  plead  for  mourners  ;  may  it  bring 
back  those  who  wander  from  the  faith  ;  may  it  raise  up 
those  who  are  fallen  into  sins ;  may  it  reconcile  us  to 
the  Father ;  may  it  confirm  us  with  the  grace  of  Christ ; 
may  it  conform  us  to  the  Holy  Spirit. 

BRIGHT'S  ANCIENT  COLLECTS. 


48  FEBRUARY    17. 

Then  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  her,  O 
woman,  great  is  thy  faith  :  be  it  unto  thee  even  as 
thou  wilt.  —  MATT.  xv.  28. 

THIS  power  of  weakness  over  strength 
comes  to  perfection  in  Jesus.  .  .  .  Every 
beggar  whom  He  met  was  a  king  to  Him.  .  .  . 
When  you  and  I  are  weak,  Christ  in  a  true 
sense  owns  the  claim  of  our  weakness  and 
comes  to  serve  us  with  His  love.  Behold,  how 
this  transfigures  life  !  The  times  that  make 
us  weakest  and  that  force  our  weakness  most 
upon  us,  and  make  us  most  know  how  weak 
we  are,  those  are  our  coronation  times,  The 
days  of  sickness,  days  of  temptation,  days  of 
doubt,  days  of  discouragement,  days  of  be 
reavement  and  of  the  aching  loneliness  which 
comes  when  the  strong  voice  is  silent  and  the 
dear  face  is  gone,  these  are  the  days  when 
Christ  sees  most  clear  the  crown  of  our  need 
upon  our  foreheads,  and  comes  to  serve  us 
with  His  love. 

Faith  is  the  king's  knowledge  of  his  own 
kingship.  A  weak  man  who  has  no  faith  in 
Christ  is  a  king  who  does  not  know  his  own  roy 
alty.  But  the  soul  which  in  its  need  cries  out 
and  claims  its  need's  dominion,  .  .  .  "Come 
to  me,  O  Christ,  for  I  need  Thee,"  finds  itself 
justified.  Its  bold  and  humble  cry  is  honored 
and  answered  instantly ;  instantly  by  its  side 
the  answer  comes:  "Great  is  thy  faith  :  be 
it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt.  What  wilt  thou 
that  I  should  do  unto  thee?  "  ni.  i75>  i77.  J7s. 


FEBRUARY    18.  49 


JVIOT  only  a  Christ  to  stand  outside  and 
*•  ^  support  with  the  strong  hands  of  His 
forgiveness,  but  a  Christ  to  come  in  and 
strengthen  by  the  power  of  His  incorporated 
life.  Christ  is  the  Staff  we  lean  on,  the  Rock 
we  stand  on,  the  Light  that  leads  us,  the  Master 
on  whose  breast  we  lie  ;  but  He  is  also  the 
Bread  of  Life.  He  is  many  things  outside  of 
us, — Wisdom,  Righteousness,  Redemption. 
He  is  also  something  inside  of  us,  Sanctifica- 
tion.  He  says,  "  Lean  on  Me,  stand  on  Me, 
take  hold  of  Me  and  walk."  But  when  He 
takes  up  His  deepest  word  it  is  this,  —  "Feed 
on  Me;  unless  you  feed  on  Me  you  have  no 
life  in  you."  He  says,  "  Look  and  see  how 
good  God  is  ;  touch  Me  and  feel  God's  mercy ; 
hear  Me  and  I  will  tell  you  IIDW  He  loves  you." 
But  at  the  last  this  comes  as  a  commandment 
of  the  deepest  faith,  the  promise  of  the  highest 
mercy,  —  "  O  taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is 
gracious."  „,  244i245. 

Him  first  to  love  great  right  and  reason  is, 
Who  first  to  us  our  life  and  being  gave, 
And  after,  when  we  fared  had  amiss, 
Us  wretches  from  the  second  death  did  save ; 
And  last,  the  food  of  life,  which  now  we  have, 
Even  He  Himself,  in  His  dear  Sacrament, 
To  feed  our  hungry  souls,  unto  us  lent. 

SPENSER. 


50  FEBRUARY    19. 


My  sword  shall  be  bathed  in  heaven. —  Ps.  xxxiv.  5. 

OD  is  about  to  smite  the  wickedness  of 
the  earth.  His  sword  is  in  His  hand. 
And  then,  as  a  part  of  the  terrible  announce 
ment,  there  come  these  words  :  "  My  sword 
shall  be  bathed  in  heaven."  What  does  that 
mean  ?  It  draws  back  the  curtain  which  sep 
arates  the  visible  world  from  the  invisible.  It 
reveals  celestial  regions  in  which  there  are 
also  great  struggles  going  on.  It  lifts  up  our 
eyes  to  the  grander  movements  of  the  vast 
world  of  spirits.  And  then  it  declares  that  the 
sword  which  is  to  be  used  in  fighting  what 
seems  to  be  the  petty  wars  of  the  Hebrews 
and  the  Edomites,  is  the  same  sword  which 
has  been  used  in  these  celestial  conflicts  ;  that 
the  means  and  instruments  of  righteousness 
upon  the  earth  must  be  the  same  with  the 
means  and  instruments  of  righteousness  in 
the  heavens.  ...  In  no  part  of  His  universe 
can  God  be  passive.  Everywhere  He  must  be 
the  toe  of  the  evil  and  the  friend  of  the  good. 
Everywhere  therefore  throughout  the  great 
perplexed  tumultuous  universe,  we  can  see  the 
flashing  of  His  sword.  "His  sword  !  "  we  say, 
and  that  must  mean  His  nature  uttering  itself 
in  His  own  form  of  force.  Nothing  can  be  in 
His  sword  which  is  not  in  His  nature.  And  so 
the  sword  of  God  in  heavenly  regions  must 
mean  perfect  thoroughness  and  perfect  justice 
contending  against  evil  and  self-will,  and  bring 
ing  about  everywhere  the  ultimate  victory  of 
righteousness  and  truth.  Iv.  263,  2e4. 


FEBRUARY   20.  51 


THAT  every  struggle  of  the  people  of  God 
against  evil  in  this  world  must  be  fired 
with  eternal  principles,  must  be  instinct  with 
thoroughness  and  with  justice ;  that  is  the 
plain  prosaic  meaning  of  the  word  of  God  to 
Isaiah  which  declared,  "  My  sword  shall  be 
bathed  in  heaven."  .  .  . 

So  it  is  possible  for  us  to  deal  with  every  sin, 
little  or  great,  that  we  discover  in  our  hearts. 
To  count  it  God's  enemy  and  to  fight  it  with  all 
His  purity  and  strength  ;  that  is  what  it  means 
for  us  that  our  sword  should  be  bathed  in 
heaven  !  Courage  can  only  come  with  thor 
oughness.  But  with  absolute  thoroughness, 
courage  must  come.  Resolve  to-day  that 
every  strength  of  God  which  it  is  your  right 
to  invoke,  because  you  are  His  child,  and 
which  prayer  and  consecration  can  bring  into 
you  from  Him,  shall  be  devoted  to  the  over 
coming  of  your  sin,  and  then  your  sin  shall 
certainly  be  overcome.  IV.  265, 279. 

Was  the  trial  sore? 

Temptation  sharp  ?    Thank  God  a  second  time  ! 
Why  comes  temptation  but  for  man  to  meet 
And  master,  and  make  crouch  beneath  his  foot, 
And  so  be  pedestalled  in  triumph  ?    Pray 
"  Lead  us  into  no  such  temptations,  Lord  !  " 
Yea,  but,  O  Thou  whose  servants  are  the  bold, 
Lead  such  temptations  by  the  head  and  hair, 
Reluctant  dragons,  up  to  who  dares  fight, 
That  so  he  may  do  battle  and  have  praise. 

BROWNING. 


52  FEBRUARY   21. 

Whatsoever  is  born  of  God  overcometh  thi 
world :  and  this  is  the  victory  that  overcometh  the 
world,  even  our  faith.  Who  is  he  that  overcometh 
the  world,  but  he  that  believe th  that  Jesus  is  the 
Son  of  God, —  I.  JOHN  v.  4,  5. 

MAKE,  then,  this  Incarnation  the  one  per 
vading  power  of  a  man's  life.  Let  his 
first  feeling  about  this  world  always  be,  "  God 
has  been  here,  and  so  God  is  here  still,"  and 
have  you  not  made  him  strong  to  walk  unpol 
luted  and  unscorched  through  the  furnace  of 
the  world's  most  fiery  corruptions  ?  It  is  the 
low  system,  the  constitution  that  is  broken 
down  and  depressed  in  tone,  that  takes  the 
contagion.  .  .  .  And  a  deep,  living  sense  of 
God  is  the  true  vitality  of  a  human  soul  which 
quenches  the  poisonous  fires  of  corruption,  as 
powerless  to  be  hurt  by  it  as  the  cold,  calm 
sea  is  to  be  set  on  fire  by  the  coals  that  you 
may  cast  burning  into  its  bosom.  Think  of 
the  day  after  Jesus  had  called  John  and  Peter 
and  Nathanael  to  be  His  servants.  They  had 
begun  to  hear  His  words  of  eternal  life.  They 
had  become  dimly  conscious  of  so  much  above 
and  beyond.  Do  you  think  it  was  as  hard  for 
them  to  pass  unspotted  by  the  places  of  temp 
tation  in  Chorazin  and  Capernaum  ?  They 
had  tasted  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come. 
And  the  true  way,  the  only  true  way,  to  make 
any  man  who  is  a  slave  to  this  world,  catching 
its  corruption,  free  and  pure,  is  to  make  him 
see  another  world,  the  supernatural  world,  the 
world  of  spiritual  life  above  him  and  below  him 
and  stretching  out  before  him  into  eternity, 
made  visible  by  Christ's  Incarnation.  Ip  ,87 


FEBRUARY   22.  53 


Oft  have  I  brooded  on  defeat  and  pain, 
The  pathos  of  the  stupid  stumbling  throng. 
These  I  ignore  to-day  and  only  long 
To  pour  my  soul  forth  in  one  trumpet  strain, 
One  clear,  grief-shattering,  triumphant  song, 
For  all  the  victories  of  man's  high  endeavor, 
Palm-bearing,  laurelled  deeds  that  live  forever, 
The  splendor  clothing  him  whose  will  is  strong. 
Hast  thou  beheld  the  deep  glad  eyes  of  one 
Who  has  persisted  and  achieved  ?    Rejoice  ! 
On  naught  diviner  shines  the  all-seeing  sun. 
Salute  him  with  free  heart  and  choral  voice, 
'Midst  flippant,  feeble  crowds  of  spectres  wan, 
The  bold,  significant,  successful  man. 

EMMA  LAZARUS, 

ALL  history  hears  witness  that  when  Goa 
means  to  make  a  great  man,  He  puts  the 
circumstances  of  the  world  and  the  lives  of 
lesser  men  under  tribute.  He  does  not  fling 
His  hero  like  an  aerolite  out  of  the  sky.  He 
bids  him  grow  like  an  oak  out  of  the  earth. 
All  earnest,  pure,  unselfish,  faithful  men  who 
have  lived  their  obscure  lives  well,  have 
helped  to  make  him.  God  has  let  none  of  them 
be  wasted.  A  thousand  unrecorded  patriots 
helped  to  make  Washington ;  a  thousand 
lovers  of  liberty  contributed  to  Lincoln.  .  .  . 
And  any  man  who  in  his  small  degree  is  living 
like  the  child  of  God,  has  a  right  to  all  the 
comfort  of  knowing  that  God  will  not  let  his 
life  be  lost,  but  will  use  it  in  the  making  of 
some  great  child  of  God,  as  He  used  centuries 
of  Jewish  lives,  prophets,  priests,  patriots, 
kings,  peasants,  women,  children,  to  make  the 
human  life  of  His  Incarnate  Son.  It.  I33, 134. 


54  FEBRUARY   23. 

Now    there   stood  by  the   cross    of  Jesus    His 
Mother. — JOHN  xix.  25. 

T  UST  as  He  was  dying  the  Sufferer  turned 
and  gave  His  Mother  to  the  care  of  His 
disciple.  "  Woman,  behold  thy  son  !"  "Son, 
behold  thy  mother!"  It  was  a  pang  within 
all  the  other  pangs,  a  woe  that  perceptibly 
added  to  their  wretchedness,  when  among  the 
faces  that  pitied  Him  He  saw  her  face  who 
bore  Him,  the  face  into  which  He  had  looked 
up  from  His  cradle.  .  .  .  The  pain  of  any 
human  being  touched  Him,  but  in  His  Mother's 
pain,  humanity  pressed  itself  closest  to  His 
sensibility  and  gave  Him  a  special  distress, 
proportioned  to  His  special  love. 

INFLUENCE,  181,  182. 


O  Lord  Jesus,  who  diist  meet  Thy  Mother  in  her 
sorrow,  and  yet,  because  of  the  love  Thou  bearest  us, 
wouldst  not  be  turned  aside  from  suffering,  help  us  to 
give  up  all  things  for  Thy  love  ;  going  wherever  Thou 
shalt  call  us,  and  doing  whatsoever  Thou  wouldst 
have  us  do. 

By  Thy  Cross  and  Passion,  and  Thy  pity  on  Thy 
Mother,  Let  us  stand  with  her  beneath  Thy  Cross,  and 
share  the  cup  of  her  sorrows. 

BOOK  OF  LITANIES.    NEALE. 


FEBRUARY   24.  55 

IT  is  not,  if  we  understand  it  rightly,  a  sign 
of  decreasing,  but  of  increasing  spiritu 
ality,  that  miracles  have  ceased.  And  so  it 
is  a  truer  discrimination  that  recognizes  the 
presences  of  God  in  men,  the  saints  that  are 
in  the  world,  not  by  the  miracles  they  work 
but  by  the  miracles  they  are,  by  the  way  in 
which  they  bring  the  grace  of  God  to  bear  on 
the  simple  duties  of  the  household  and  the 
street.  The  sainthoods  of  the  fireside  and  of 
the  market-place  —  they  wear  no  glory  round 
their  heads ;  they  do  their  duties  in  the 
strength  of  God  ;  they  have  their  martyrdoms 
and  win  their  palms,  and  though  they  get  into 
no  calendars,  they  leave  a  benediction  and  a 
force  behind  them  on  the  earth  when  they  go 
up  to  heaven.  i.  I3I>  I32. 

A  SONG   FOR  THE  LEAST  OF  ALL  SAINTS. 

Love  is  the  key  of  life  and  death, 

Of  hidden  heavenly  mystery  ; 
Of  all  Christ  is,  of  all  He  saith, 

Love  is  the  key. 

As  three  times  to  His  Saint  He  saith, 
He  saith  to  me,  He  saith  to  thee, 

Breathing  His  Grace-conferring  Breath  : 
"Lovestthou  Me?" 

Ah,  Lord,  I  have  such  feeble  faith, 
Such  feeble  hope  to  comfort  me  : 

But  love  it  is,  is  strong  as  death, 
And  I  love  Thee. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI, 


56  FEBRUARY    25. 


think  it  possible  that  God  should  fill 
a  humanity  with  Himself,  once  see 
humanity  capable  of  being  filled  with  God, 
and  can  you  conceive  of  His  not  doing  it  ? 
Must  there  not  be  an  Incarnation  ?  Do  you 
not  instantly  begin  to  search  earth  for  the  holy 
steps  ?  Once  think  it  possible  that  Christ 
can,  and  are  you  not  sure  that  Christ  must 
give  Himself  for  our  Redemption  ?  So  only, 
when  it  seems  inevitable  and  natural,  does  the 
Christhood  become  our  pattern.  Then  only 
does  it  shine  on  the  mountain-top  up  toward 
which  we  can  feel  the  low  lines  of  our  low  life 
aspiring.  The  Son  of  God  is  also  the  Son  of 
Man.  Then  in  us,  the  sons  of  men,  there  is 
the  key  to  the  secret  of  His  being  and  His 
work.  Know  Christ  that  you  may  know 
yourself.  But,  oh  !  also  know  yourself  that 
you  may  know  Christ !  v.  i4,  15. 


"  O  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee  ;  a  man  like  to 

me, 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever  !  a  hand  like 

this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee  !     See 

the  Christ  stand  !  " 

BROWNING. 


FEBRUARY    26.  57 


THAT  is  the  time  in  life  when  confirmation 
ought  to  come.  Not  in  mere  childhood, 
when  the  life  is  still  wholly  under  other  peo 
ple's  influence ;  not,  unless  it  has  been  put 
off  by  neglect  before,  in  those  later  years 
when  manhood  is  an  old  story,  and  the  nature 
is  hard  with  long  doubt  and  hesitation  ;  but  it 
ought  to  come  just  when  the  new  freedom 
is  beginning  to  be  felt,  when  obedience  to 
authority  is  opening  into  personal  responsi 
bility,  when  the  implicit  faith  is  just  asking 
for  its  soul  of  reason,  and  anticipating  the 
changes  which  shall  make  it  the  peculiar  faith 
of  this  peculiar  life,  —  then  it  is  that  con 
firmation  has  its  fullest  meaning.  It  is  the 
gathering  up  of  all  the  faith  and  dutiful  impulse 
of  the  past  that  it  may  go  before  the  life  into 
the  untried  fields.  v.  295>  296. 

The  shadow  of  the  Almighty's  cloud 

Calm  on  the  tents  of  Israel  lay, 
While  drooping  paused  twelve  banners  proud, 

Till  He  arise  and  lead  the  way. 

Then  to  the  desert  breeze  unrolled, 

Cheerly  the  waving  pennons  fly, 
Lion  or  eagle  —  each  bright  fold 

A  lodestar  to  a  warrior's  eye. 

So  should  Thy  champions,  ere  the  strife, 
By  holy  hands  o'er-shadowed  kneel, 

So,  fearless  for  their  charmed  life, 
Bear,  to  the  end,  Thy  Spirit's  seal. 

KEBLE. 


58  FEBRUARY    27. 


IS  there  nothing  that  Christ  as  your  Friend, 
your  Lord,  your  Saviour,  wants  you  to  do 
that  you  are  leaving  undone  to-day  ?  Do  you 
doubt  one  instant  that  with  His  high  and  deep 
love  for  your  soul,  He  wants  you  to  pray  ?  — 
And  do  you  pray  ?  Do  you  doubt  one  instant 
that  it  is  His  will  that  you  should  honor  and 
help  and  bless  all  these  men  about  you  who  are 
His  brethren  ?  —  And  are  you  doing  anything 
like  that  ?  Do  you  doubt  one  instant  that  His 
will  is  that  you  should  make  life  serious  and 
lofty  ?  —  And  are  you  making  it  frivolous  and 
low?  Do  you  doubt  one  instant  that  He  wants 
you  to  be  pure  in  deed  and  word  and  thought  ? 
—  And  are  you  pure  ?  Do  you  doubt  one  instant 
that  His  command  is  for  you  openly  to  own 
Him  and  declare  that  you  are  His  servant  be 
fore  all  the  world  ?  —  And  have  you  done  it  ? 
These  are  the  questions  which  make  the  whole 
matter  clear.  No,  not  in  quiet  lanes,  nor  in 
bright  temple-courts  as  once  He  spoke,  and  not 
from  blazing  heavens  as  men  seem  sometimes 
to  expect,  —  not  so  does  Christ  speak  to  us. 
And  yet  He  speaks  !  I  know  what  He,  there 
in  His  glory,  He  here  in  my  heart,  wants  me 
to  do  to-day,  and  I  know  that  I  am  not  mis 
taken  in  my  knowledge.  It  is  no  guess  of 
mine.  It  is  His  voice  that  tells  me. 

V.   356,   357- 

"  To-day  is  but  a  little  holding,  lent 
To  do  a  mighty  labor.    We  are  one 
With  heaven  and  the  stars,  when  it  is  spent 
To  serve  Go  J's  aim  ;  else,  we  die  with  the  .  un." 


FEBRUARY   28.  59 


This  is  the  will  of  God,  even  your  sanciifica- 
tion.  —  I.  THESS.  iv.  3. 

A  S  we  stand  before  the  font  we  solemnly 
dedicate  ourselves  to  a  struggle  with  the 
passion  and  inner  power  of  sinfulness  which 
shall  know  no  rest  until  it  is  completely 
quenched  and  dead,  until  we  love  goodness 
perfectly,  and  hate  sin  perfectly,  even  as  God 
does.  .  .  .  When  one  desires  to  be  holy,  and 
knowing  that  it  is  God's  will  as  well  as  his 
that  he  should  be,  throws  himself  on  that  will 
of  God  and  clings  to  it  with  eager  hands,  cer 
tain  that  it  must  carry  him  to  success,  for  him 
there  is  no  fear.  He  is  as  sure  to  reach  the 
prize  he  seeks,  as  the  patient  stars  are  to  be 
led  of  God  around  their  shining  orbits. 

BAPTISM  AND  CONFIRMATION,  12,  28. 


We  lift  to  Thee  our  failing  eyes, 

Our  failing  wills  to  Thee : 
O  Great  Lord  God  of  Battles,  rise, 

Till  foes  and  shadows  flee, 

And  death  being  swallowed  up  of  life  shall  cease  to  be. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


6o  FEBRUARY   29. 


Behold,  I  set  before  you  this  day  a  blessing,  .  .  . 
if  ye  obey  the  commandments  of  the  Lord  your 
God.  —  Ex.  xi.  26,  27. 

THE  setting  of  the  less  finite  into  the  com 
plete  infinite  nature  Christ  calls  by 
various  names.  Sometimes  it  \^  faith.  You 
must  believe  in  God.  Sometimes  it  is  affection. 
You  must  love  God.  Always  what  it  means  is 
the  same  thing.  You  must  belong  to  God. 
Then  His  life  shall  be  your  life.  1  am  come  to 
bring  you  to  Him  that  so  you  may  have  life 
and  have  it  more  abundantly.  Sometimes  He 
seems  to  gather  up  His  fullest  declaration  of 
this  vital  connection  of  man  with  God  and  call 
it  in  one  mighty  word,  "Obedience."  You 
must  obey  God  and  so  live  by  Him.  .  .  . 
When  God  says  to  His  people,  "  Do  This  and 
Live,"  He  is  not  making  a  bargain.  He  is  de 
claring  a  necessary  truth.  He  is  pronouncing 
a  necessity.  "He  who  does  My  Will,  pos 
sesses  Me."  For  My  Will  is  the  broad  ave 
nue  to  the  deepest  chambers  of  My  Life.  There 
is  nothing  in  Me  that  he  who  obeys  Me  may 
not  reach  according  to  his  power.  "  Son,  thou 
art  ever  with  me  and  all  that  1  have  is  thine." 
So  speaks  the  Infinite  God  to  the  obedient 
child.  But  to  disobedience  the  door  is  closed. 
Whatever  wealth  there  may  be  is  none  of  his. 
Obedience  means  mastery  and  wealth.  There 
fore,  let  us  glorify  obedience,  which  is  light 
and  life,  and  dread  disobedience,  which  is 

darkness  and  death.  HARVARD  MONTHLY,  180. 


MARCH    i.  61 


nearer  and  nearer  to  Christ," 
^— '  we  say  ;  that  does  not  mean  creeping 
into  a  refuge  where  we  can  be  safe.  It  means 
becoming  better  and  better  men  ;  repeating 
His  character  more  and  more  in  ours.  The 
only  true  danger  is  sin,  and  so  the  only  true 
safety  is  holiness.  What  a  sublime  ambition  ! 
How  it  takes  our  vague,  half-felt  wishes  and 
fills  them  with  reality  and  strength,  when  the 
moral  growth,  which  makes  a  man  complete, 
is  put  before  us,  not  abstractly,  but  in  this 
picture  of  the  dearest  and  noblest  being  that 
our  souls  can  dream  of,  standing  before  us 
and  saying  to  us,  "  Come  unto  me  ;  "  standing 
over  us  and  praying  for  us,  "  Father,  bring 
them  where  I  am."  i.  3I3. 


But,  all  I  felt  there,  right  or  wrong, 
What  is  it  to  Thee,  who  curest  sinning? 

Am  1  not  weak  as  Thou  art  strong  ? 
1  have  looked  to  Thee  from  the  beginning, 

Straight  up  to  Thee  through  all  the  world 

Which,  like  an  idle  scroll,  lay  furled 

To  nothingness  on  either  side  : 

And  since  the  time  Thou  wast  descried, 

Spite  of  the  weak  heart,  so  have  1 

Lived  ever,  and  so  fain  would  die, 

Living  and  dying,  Thee  before  ! 

BROWNING 


62  MARCH   2. 


My  God  !  my  God  !  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me.' 

MATT,  xxvii.  46. 

'"THE  joy  of  loving  and  the  pain  which 
1  only  love  can  bring  beat  tumultuously 
together  in  this  cry.  But  underneath  them 
both  there  is  obedience,  and  the  idea  from 
which  obedience  proceeds.  Not  for  one  mo 
ment  does  He  think  of  coming  down  from  the 
cross  to  find  His  Father.  Whether  He  find 
Him  or  lose  Him,  whether  the  issue  of  His 
love  be  the  perfect  joy  of  union  or  the  ex 
quisite  suffering  that  separation  brings,  He 
must  obey  Him  first.  Even  if  His  doing  of 
His  Father's  will  seems  to  shut  Him  out  of 
His  Father's  presence,  there  cannot  be  a 
question  ;  the  will  must  be  done. 

INFLUKNC:E.  -78. 


It  were  not  hard  to  suffer  by  His  hand, 

If  thou  couldst  see  His  face  ;  but  in  the  dark  ! 

That  is  the  one  last  trial :  —  be  it  so. 

Christ  was  forsaken,  so  must  thou  be  too  ; 

How  couldst  thou  suffer  but  in  seeming,  else? 

Thou  wilt  not  see  the  face  nor  feel  the  hand. 

Only  the  cruel  crushing  of  the  feet, 

When  through  the  bitter  night  the  Lord  comes  down 

To  tread  the  wine-press.  —  Not  by  sight,  but  faith, 

Endure,  endure,  —  be  faithful  to  the  end. 

UGO  BASSI'S  SERMON  IN  THF  HOSPITAL. 


MARCH    3.  63 

Whoever  shall  keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  off e mi 
in  one  point,  /it'  is  guilty  of  all. — JAMES  ii.  10. 

WHY  ?  Because  the  consistent,  habitual 
breakage  of  one  point  proves  that  the 
others  were  kept  under  the  law  of  constraint, 
not  under  the  law  of  liberty.  It  proves  that 
the  tendency  of  the  nature's  liberty,  which 
breaks  forth  in  this  one  place,  is  a  bad  ten 
dency  and  not  a  good  one.  ...  It  takes  only 
one  volcano  anywhere  in  the  earth  to  show 
that  the  heart  of  the  earth  is  fire,  and  that 
some  day  it  may  burst  through  the  thickest 
crust.  .  .  .  This  is  the  tragedy  of  our  single 
sins,  dear  friends.  .  .  .  Down  the  crack  which 
some  one  transgression  makes  in  the  fair  face 
of  a  smooth  and  blooming  life,  we  can  see 
waiting  for  God's  judgment-word,  the  fire 
before  which  that  life  shall  be  at  last  con 
sumed  with  fervent  heat.  n.  I93, 194. 

I  peered  within,  and  saw  a  world  of  sin  : 
Upward,  and  saw  a  world  of  righteousness  : 

Downward,  and  saw  darkness  and  flame  begin 
Which  no  man  can  express. 

I  girt  me  up,  I  gat  me  up  to  flee 

From  face  of  darkness  and  devouring  flame : 
And  tied  1  had,  but  guilt  is  loading  me 

With  dust  of  death  and  shame. 

Yet  still  the  light  of  righteousness  beams  pure, 
Beams  to  me  from  the  world  of  far-off  day  :  — 

Lord  who  hast  called  them  happy  that  endure, 
Lord,  make  me  such  as  they. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI 


64  MARCH   4. 

Thou  shaft  fax  the  Lord  thy  God  U'ith  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  H'ith  all  thy  mind. 
.  .  .  Thou  shalt  lore  thy  neighbor  as  thyself. 

MATT.  xxii.  57.  59. 

THOU  shalt  love.  The  duty  of  loving. — 
there  is  nothing  of  that  in  the  codes  of 
abstract  duty.  It  is  impossible  to  exclude  that 
from  its  fundamental  place  in  the  system  of 
duty  whose  constant  spring  is  in  the  father 
hood  of  God.  ...  Of  this  quality  in  duty  it 
is  no  Christian's  place  to  be  ashamed  or  afraid. 
None  of  us  may  melt  it  a\vay  or  sink  it  out  of 
sight.  In  its  prominence  lies  the  soul  of  the 
duty  that  we  do.  We  may  not  try  to  make 
that  duty  cold  and  soulless  which  has  its  true 
being  in  the  central  commandment  which  is 
its  living  soul.  —  "Thou  shalt  love." 

ISFLIENCE,  61.   6a. 

Love  is  alone  the  worthy  law  of  love  : 
All  other  laws  have  pre-supposed  a  taint : 
Love  is  the  law  from  kindled  saint  to  saint, 

From  lamb  to  lamb,  from  tender  dove  to  dove. 

Love  is  the  motive  of  all  things  that  move 
Harmonious  by  free  will  without  constraint. 
Love  learns  and  teaches  :    love  shall  man  acquaint 

With  all  he  lacks,  which  all  his  lack  is  love. 

Because  Love  is  the  fountain.  1  discern 
The  stream  as  love :  for  what  but  love  should  flow 
From  fountain  Love?  not  bitter  from  the  sweet ! 
1  ignorant  have  I  laid  claim  to  know? 
Oh  teach  me.  Love,  such  knowledge  as  is  meet 

For  one  to  know  who  is  fain  to  love  and  learn. 

CHRISTINA  RGSSETTI 


MARCH    5.  65 

Unto  you  that  fear  my  name  shall  the  Sun  of 
righteousness  arise  with  healing  in  his  wings. 

MAL.  iv.   2. 

As  a  bird  in  meadows  fair 

Or  in  lonely  forest  sings 
Till  it  fills  the  summer  air, 

And  the  greenwood  sweetly  rings, 
So  my  heart  to  Thee  would  raise, 
O  my  God,  its  song  of  praise 
That  the  gloom  of  night  is  o'er, 
And  I  see  the  sun  once  more. 

If  Thou,  Sun  of  Love,  arise 

All  my  heart  with  joy  is  stirred. 
And  to  greet  Thee  upward  flies, 

Gladsome  as  yon  little  bird, 
Shine  Thou  in  me  clear  and  bright 
Till  I  learn  to  praise  Thee  right ; 
Guide  me  in  the  narrow  way, 
Let  me  ne'er  in  darkness  stray. 

FROM  THE  GERMAN,  1580. 

HRIST,  to  the  Christian  growing  older, 
seems  to  be  what  the  sun  is  to  the  de 
veloping  day,  which  it  lightens  from  the  morn 
ing  to  the  evening.  When  the  sun  is  in  the 
zenith  in  the  broad  noon-day,  men  do  their 
various  works  by  his  light ;  but  they  do  not 
so  often  look  up  to  him.  It  is  the  sunlight 
that  they  glory  in,  flooding  a  thousand  tasks 
with  clearness,  making  a  million  things  beau 
tiful.  But  as  the  world  rolls  into  the  evening, 
it  is  the  sun  itself  at  sunset  that  men  gather 
to  look  at  and  admire  and  love.  n.  I  2. 


66  MARCH   6. 


ROUTINE  is  a  terrible  master,  but  she  is  a 
servant  whom  we  can  hardly  do  with 
out.  Routine  as  a  law  is  deadly.  Routine  as 
a.  resource  in  the  temporary  exhaustion  of  im 
pulse  and  suggestion  is  often  our  salvation. 
Coleridge  told  the  story  when  he  sang  — 

"  There  will  come  a  \veary  day 
When,  overtaxed  at  length, 
Both  hope  and  love  beneath 
The  weight  give  way. 
Then  with  a  statue's  smile, 
A  statue's  strength, 
Patience,  nothing  loth, 
And  uncomplaining,  does 
The  work  of  both." 

But  patience,  while  a  strong  power,  is  not 
quick-sighted,  and  works  in  ways  and  habits 
which  have  been  made  before. 

YALE  LECTURES,  93. 

Then  with  a  ripple  and  a  radiance  thro'  me 
Rise  and  be  manifest,  O  Morning  Star  ! 

Flow  on  my  soul,  thou  Spirit,  and  renew  me, 
Fill  with  Thyself,  and  let  the  rest  be  far. 

Safe  to  the  hidden  house  of  thine  abiding 
Carry  the  weak  knees  and  the  heart  that  faints, 

Shield  from  the  scorn  and  cover  from  the  chiding, 
Give  the  world  joy,  but  patience  to  the  saints. 

F.  W.  H.  MYERS. 


MARCH   7.  67 


C  VERY  now  and  then  a  conscience,  among 
I-'  the  men  and  women  who  live  easy, 
thoughtless  lives,  is  stirred,  and  some  one 
looks  up  anxiously,  holding  up  some  one  of  the 
pretty  idlenesses  in  which  such  people  spend 
their  days  and  nights,  and  says  "Is  this 
wrong?  Is  it  wicked  to  do  this?"  And 
when  they  get  their  answer,  "  No,  certainly 
not  wicked,"  then  they  go  back  and  give  their 
whole  lives  up  to  doing  their  innocent  little 
piece  of  uselessness  again.  Ah,  the  question 
is  not  whether  that  is  wicked,  whether  God 
will  punish  you  for  doing  that.  The  question 
is  whether  that  thing  is  keeping  other  better 
things  away  from  you  ;  whether  behind  its 
little  bulk  the  vast  privilege  and  dignity  of 
duty  is  hid  from  you  ;  whether  it  stands  be 
tween  God  and  your  soul.  If  it  does,  then 
it  is  an  offence  to  you,  and  though  it  be  your 
right  hand  or  your  right  eye,  cut  it  off,  pluck 
it  out,  and  cast  it  from  you.  The  advantage 
and  joy  will  be  not  in  its  absence,  for  you  will 
miss  it  very  sorely,  but  in  what  its  loss  re 
veals,  in  the  new  life  which  lies  beyond  it, 
which  you  will  see  stretching  out  and  tempt 
ing  you  as  soon  as  it  is  gone.  n.  2I3>  2I4. 

We  sinners  beseech  thee  to  hear  us,  Good  Lord, 

That  by  Thy  Love  the  world  may  be  crucified  to  us  and 

we  unto  the  world, 
That  we  may  crucify  the  flesh  with  its  affections  and 

lusts, 

That  we  may  daily  take  up  our  cross  and  follow  Thee  ; 
That  we  may  live  in  Thee  and  die  in  Thee. 

BOOK  OF  LITANIES.    NEALE 


68  MARCH  8. 


And  if  thou  draw  out  thy  soul  to  the  hungry,  and 
satisfy  the  afflicted  soul,  then  shall  thy  light  rise  in 
obscurity,  and  thy  darkness  be  as  the  noondav. 

ISA.  Iviii.  10. 

f~^  O  ;  do  your  duty,  giving  to  every  task  the 
sublimest  motive  which  you  know  and 
which  you  can  bring  to  bear  upon  it.  Get  at 
the  essence  of  goodness,  which  is  not  in  its 
enthusiasms  or  delights,  but  in  its  heart  of 
consecration.  Sometimes  the  consecration 
may  be  all  the  more  thorough  and  complete 
when  the  joy  of  consecration  seems  to  be 
farthest  away.  And  yet  every  consecration 
made  in  the  darkness  is  reaching  out  toward 
the  light,  and  in  the  end  must  come  out  into 
the  light,  strong  in  the  strength  which  it  won 
in  its  life  and  struggle  in  the  dark. 

V.  175. 

Through  love  to  light !  Oh  wonderful  the  way 

That  leads  from  darkness  to  the  perfect  day  ! 

From  darkness  and  from  sorrow  of  the  night 

To  morning  that  comes  singing  o'er  the  sea. 

Through  love  to  light !  Through  light,  O  God,  to  Thee, 

Who  art  the  love  of  love,  the  eternal  light  of  light! 

RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER. 


MARCH    9.  69 


Jesus  .   .    .   saith,  I  thirst. — JOHN  xix.  28. 

""THE  physical  sensitiveness  of  Jesus  no  doubt 
helped,  as  no  other  medium  could  have 
helped,  that  deep,  mysterious  process,  the  de 
velopment  of  the  self-consciousness  of  Jesus. 
Why  should  I  not  believe  that  out  of  the 
physical  difficulties  which  tore  His  hands  He 
plucked  the  full  flower  of  His  knowledge  of  His 
own  soul,  and,  wrapped  up  at  the  heart  of  that, 
His  knowledge  of  the  soul  of  His  Father?  .  .  . 
To  Jesus,  and  to  His  disciples,  and  to  all  men 
who  know  the  bodily  life  as  He  knew  it  and 
taught  them  to  know  it,  the  pain  and  happi 
ness  of  which  the  human  body  is  capable  must 
be  very  noble  messages. 

INFLUENCE,  170,  173- 


I  lift  mine  eyes,  and  see 

Thee,  tender  Lord,  in  pain  upon  the  tree, 

Athirst  for  my  sake  and  athirst  for  me. 


Yea,  look  upon  Me  there 

Compassed  with  thorns  and  bleeding  everywhere, 

For  thy  sake  bearing  all  and  glad  to  bear. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


70  MARCH    10. 


a  few  weeks  let  these  obtrusive  world- 
linesses  which  block  the  door  of  our  hearts 
stand  back  ;  and  let  the  way  be  clear  that  He 
who  longs  to  enter  in  and  help  us  may  come 
and  meet  no  obstacle.  This  is  our  lenten  task. 
"  If  any  man  will  hear  My  voice  and  open  unto 
Me,  I  will  come  in  and  sup  with  him,"  says 
Jesus.  To  still  the  clatter  and  tumult  a  little 
so  that  we  may  hear  His  voice,  and  to  open 
the  door  by  prayer,  that  is  the  privilege  and 

duty  of  these  coming  weeks. 

ii.  215. 

'Tis  "rue,  we  cannot  reach  Christ's  fortieth  day  ; 
Yet  to  go  part  of  that  religious  way 

Is  better  than  to  rest : 
We  cannot  reach  our  Saviour's  purity  ; 
Yet  are  we  bid,  "  Be  holy  e'en  as  He." 

In  both  let's  do  our  best. 

Who  goeth  in  the  way  which  Christ  hath  gone, 
Is  much  more  sure  to  meet  with  Him,  than  one 

That  travelleth  by-ways. 
Perhaps  my  God,  though  He  be  far  before. 
May  turn,  and  take  me  by  the  hand,  and  more, 

May  strengthen  my  decays. 

Yet,  Lord,  instruct  us  to  improve  our  fast 
By  starving  sin,  and  taking  such  repast 

As  may  our  faults  control : 
That  every  man  may  revel  at  his  door, 
Not  in  his  parlour ;  banqueting  the  poor, 

And  among  those  his  soul. 

GEORGK  HERBERT. 


MARCH     ii.  71 


Within  a  cavern  of  man's  trackless  spirit 

Is  framed  an  Image  so  intensely  fair, 
That  the  adventurous  thoughts  that  wander  near  it 

Worship,  and  as  they  kneel  tremble,  and  wear 
The  splendor  of  its  Presence,  and  the  light 

Penetrates  their  dreamlike  frame 
Till  they  become  charged  with  the  strength  of  flame. 

PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY. 

X/'OU  have  your  good,  your  spirituality,  your 
1  better  life ;  something  that  bears  witness 
of  God.  In  every  man's  heart  there  is  a  holy 
city,  a  Jerusalem,  where,  loud  or  muffled,  in 
some  voice  from  the  altar  or  some  light  above 
the  mercy-seat,  the  Heavenly  Father  bears 
testimony  of  His  goodness  and  tempts  us  to 
Himself.  It  may  be  very  dim,  but  there  it  is 
in  all  of  us.  }.  4S.  46. 

Lighten  me,  good  Jesus,  with  the  bright  light  within, 

And  from  my  heart's  cell  drive  away  all  shadows. 

Bridle  my  many  wandering  thoughts  ; 

Fight  bravely  for  me,  conquer  the  wild  beasts  — 

Enticing  lusts,  I  mean, 

That  in  Thy  strength  there  may  be  peace, 

And  that  Thy  praise  may  evermore  resound 

Within  Thy  holy  temple  — 

A  conscience  that  is  pure. 

Bless  and  sanctify  my  soul  with  blessing  from  above, 
That  it  may  be  Thy  holy  dwelling  place,  the  home  of 

Thine  eternal  glory, 
And  that  nothing  may  be  found  within  the  temple  of 

Thy  condescension 

Offending  Thy  majestic  gaze. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS 


72  MARCH    12. 

And  Edom  came  out  against  \_the  children  of 
fsrael~\  with  much  people  and  with  a  strong 
hand.  —  NUM.  xx.  20. 

IT  is  there  in  some  shape  always  :  this  good 
among  the  evil,  this  power  of  God  among 
the  forces  of  men,  this  Judah  in  the  midst  of 
Asia.  But  always  right  on  its  border  lies  the 
hostile  Edom,  watchful,  indefatigable,  inex 
orable  as  the  redoubtable  old  foe  of  the  Jews. 
If  progress  falters  a  moment,  the  whole  mass 
of  obstructive  ignorance  is  rolled  upon  it.  If 
faith  leaves  a  loop-hole  undefended,  the  quick 
eye  of  Atheism  sees  it  from  its  watch-tower 
and  hurls  its  quick  strength  there.  If  goodness 
goes  to  sleep  upon  its  arms,  sleepless  wicked 
ness  is  across  the  valley,  and  the  fields  which 
it  has  taken  months  of  toil  to  sow  and  ripen 
are  swept  off  in  a  night.  Tell  me,  is  not  this 
the  impression  of  the  world,  of  human  life, 
that  you  get,  whether  you  open  the  history  of 
any  century  or  unfold  your  morning  news 
paper  ?  The  record  of  a  struggling  charity  is 
crowded  by  the  story  of  the  prison  and  the 
court.  The  world  waits  at  the  church  door  to 
catch  the  worshipper  as  he  comes  out.  The 
good  work  of  one  century  relaxes  a  moment 
for  a  breathing  spell,  and  the  next  century 
comes  in  with  its  licentiousness  or  its  supersti 
tion.  Always  it  is  the  higher  life  pressed, 
watched,  haunted  by  the  lower  ;  always  it  is 
Judah  with  Edom  at  its  gates.  No  one  great 
battle  comes  to  settle  it  forever :  it  is  an  end 
less  fight  with  an  undying  enemy. 


MARCH    13.  73 


YOU  mean  to  be  true  ;  but  once  your  truth 
sleeps  on  its  guard,  and  the  Edomite  is 
over  the  valley,  and  the  lie  is  right  in  the  very 
midst  of  your  well-guarded  truthfulness.  You 
love  humility  ;  but  some  day  your  humility 
keeps  a  careless  feast  of  self-confidence,  and 
before  you  know  it  the  shout  of  the  invader 
pride  is  in  your  ears.  How  evil  crowds  you. 
You  cannot  fight  it  out  at  once  and  have  it 
done.  You  go  on  quietly  for  days  and  think 
the  enemy  is  dead.  Just  when  you  are  safest 
there  he  is  again,  more  alive  than  ever.  .  It  is 
the  Saviour's  word,  "  Behold,  I  send  you  forth 
as  sheep  among  wolves  ;  "  only  the  sheep  and 
the  wolf  are  both  within  us :  Judah,  with 
Edom  forever  at  its  gate.  ,.  46i  47. 


Looking  within  myself,  I  note  how  thin 

A  plank  of  station,  chance,  or  prosperous  fate, 
Doth  fence  me  from  the  clutching  waves  of  sin  ;  — 
In  my  own  heart  I  find  the  worst  man's  mate, 
And  see  not  dimly  the  smooth-hinged  gate 

That  opes  to  those  abysses 
Where  ye  grope  darkly,  — -ye  who  never  knew 
On  your  young  hearts  love's  consecrating  dew 

Or  felt  a  mother's  kisses, 

Or  home's  restraining  tendrils  round  you  curled  ; 
Ah,  side  by  side  with  heart's-ease  in  this  world 
The  fatal  night-shade  grows  and  bitter  rue  ! 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


74  MARCH    14. 

Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with 
dyed  garments  from  Bozrah  ?  .  .  .  I  that  speak 
in  righteousness,  mighty  to  save.  —  ISA.  Ixiii.  i . 

IT  is  time  for  the  Saviour  when  the  world 
and  the  soul  have  learnt  their  helplessness 
and  sin.  ...  Is  it  possible  that  this  one 
that  we  see  coming,  this  one  on  whose  step,  as 
He  moves  through  history,  the  eyes  of  all  the 
ages  are  fastened, — is  it  possible  that  He  is 
the  conqueror  of  the  enemy  and  the  Deliverer 
of  the  Soul  ?  He  comes  out  of  the  enemy's 
direction.  The  whole  work  of  the  Saviour 
has  relation  to  and  issues  from  the  fact  of 
sin.  If  there  had  been  no  sin  there  would 
have  been  no  Saviour.  "He  came  not  to  call 
the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance."  He 
comes  from  the  right  direction,  and  He  has  an 
attractive  majesty  of  movement  as  He  first 
appears.  .  .  .  The  Saviour  comes  in  the 
strength  of  righteousness.  Righteousness  is 
at  the  bottom  of  all  things.  Righteousness 
is  thorough.  It  is  the  very  spirit  of  unsparing 
truth.  Any  reform  or  salvation  of  which  the 
power  is  righteousness  must  go  down  to  the 
very  root  of  the  trouble,  must  extenuate  and 
cover  over  nothing ;  must  expose  and  convict 
completely,  in  order  that  it  may  completely 
heal.  And  this  is  the  power  of  the  salvation 
of  Christ.  It  makes  no  compromise  between 
the  good  and  the  evil,  between  Judah  and 
Edom.  Edom  must  be  destroyed,  not  parleyed 
with  ;  sin  must  be  beaten  down  and  not  con 
ciliated  ;  good  must  thrive  by  the  defeat  and 
not  merely  by  the  tolerance  of  evil. 

I.  5°.  Si- 


MARCH    15.  75 

'"THE  Saviour  Himself,  surely  He  is  never  so 
*•  dear,  never  wins  so  utter  and  so  tender  a 
love,  as  when  we  see  what  it  has  cost  Him  to 
save  us.  .  .  .  Not  merely  He  has  conquered 
completely  and  conquered  in  suffering  ;  He  has 
conquered  alone.  As  any  one  reads  through 
the  Gospels  he  feels  how  hopeless  the  attempt 
would  be  to  tell  of  the  loneliness  of  that  life 
which  Jesus  lived.  "I  have  trodden  the  wine 
press  alone,  and  of  the  people  there  was  none 
with  me.  I  looked  and  there  was  none  to 
help.  Therefore  mine  own  arm  brought 
salvation."  He  had  friends,  but  we  always 
feel  how  far  off  they  stood  from  the  deepest 
centre  of  His  heart.  He  had  disciples,  but 
they  never  came  into  the  inner  circles  of  His 
self-knowledge.  He  had  fellow-workers,  but 
they  only  handed  round  the  broken  bread  and 
fishes  in  the  miracle,  or  ordered  the  guest 
chamber  on  the  Passover  night.  They  never 
came  into  the  deepest  work  of  His  life.  With 
the  mysterious  suffering  that  saved  the  world 
they  had  nothing  to  do.  L  5J>  S4. 

Wanderers  in  far  countrie 

O  think  of  Him  who  came,  forgot, 

To  His  own,  and  they  received  Him  not  — 

Jesus  of  Galilee. 

O  all  ye  who  have  trod 

The  wine-press  of  affliction,  lay 

Your  hearts  before  His  heart  this  day  — 

Behold  the  Christ  of  God. 

DINAH  MUIOCH  CRAIK. 


76  MARCH    16. 

/  have  trodden  the  wine-press ;  I  will  tread 
them  in  mine  anger  and  trample  them  in  m\  fury, 
and  their  blood  shall  be  sprinkled  upon  my  garments, 
and  I  will  stain  all  my  raiment. — Isa.  Ixiii.  3. 

BEHOLD,  it  is  no  holiday  monarch  coming 
with  a  bloodless  triumph.  It  has  been  no 
pageant  of  a  day,  this  strife  with  sin.  The 
robes  have  trailed  in  the  blood.  .  .  .  The 
power  of  God  had  struggled  with  the  enemy 
and  subdued  him  only  in  the  agony  of  strife. 
My  friends,  far  be  it  from  me  to  undertake  to 
read  all  the  deep  mystery  that  is  in  this  picture. 
Only  this  I  know  is  the  burden  and  soul  of  it 
all,  this  truth, — that  sin  is  a  horrible,  strong, 
positive  thing,  and  that  not  even  divinity- 
grapples  with  him  and  subdues  him  except  in 
strife  and  pain.  .  .  .  This  symbol  of  the  blood 
bears  this  great  truth,  which  has  been  the 
power  of  salvation  to  millions  of  hearts,  and 
which  must  make  this  conqueror  the  Saviour 
of  your  heart  too,  the  truth  that  only  in  self- 
sacrifice  and  suffering  could  even  God  conquer 
sin.  Sin  is  never  so  dreadful  as  when  we  see 
the  Saviour  with  that  blood  upon  His  garments. 
.  .  .  The  Lord  Himself  conquers  sin.  He 
brings  out  victory  in  His  open  hand.  From 
His  hand  we  take  it  by  the  power  of  prayer, 
and  to  Him  alone  we  render  thanks  here  and 
forever.  1,52-53.5?. 

Once  o'er  this  painful  earth  a  man  did  move, 
The  Man  of  griefs,  because  the  Man  of  Love. 

The  wine  of  Love  can  be  obtained  of  none, 
Save  Him  who  trod  the  wine-press  all  alone. 

R.  C.  TREM.H. 


MARCH    17.  77 

THIS  conqueror  who  comes,  comes  strong, 
—  "travelling  in  the  greatness  of  His 
strength."  He  has  not  left  His  might  behind 
Him  in  the  struggle.  He  is  all  ready,  with  the 
same  strength  with  which  He  conquered,  to 
enter  in  and  rule  and  educate  the  nation  He 
has  saved.  And  so  the  Saviour  has  not  done 
all  when  He  has  forgiven  you.  By  the  same 
strength  of  love  and  patience  which  saved  you 
upon  Calvary,  He  will  come  in,  if  you  will  let 
Him,  and  train  your  saved  life  into  perfectness 
of  grace  and  glory.  He  has  conquered  sin,  so 
that  you  need  not  be  its  servant  any  longer. 
Now  let  Him  conquer  you  by  His  great  love, 
and  so  let  His  victory  be  complete.  j.  55,  s6. 


Surely  He  coineth,  and  a  thousand  voices 
Shout  to  the  saints  and  to  the  deaf  are  dumb  ; 

Surely  He  cometh,  and  the  earth  rejoices 
Glad  in  His  coming  who  hath  sworn,  I  come. 

This  hath  He  done  and  shall  we  not  adore  Him  ? 

This  shall  He  do  and  can  we  still  despair? 
Come  let  us  quickly  fling  ourselves  before  Him, 

Cast  at  His  feet  the  burden  of  our  care, 

Flash  from  our  eyes  the  glow  of  our  thanksgiving, 
Glad  and  regretful,  confident  and  calm, 

Then  thro'  all  life  and  what  is  after  living 
Thrill  to  the  tireless  music  of  a  psalm. 

F.  W.  H.  MYERS. 


78  MARCH    18. 


\J7HEN  we  think  how  imperfectly  Christ  has 
'*  been  welcomed  and  adopted  here  —  how 
only  to  the  outside  of  our  life  He  has  pene 
trated,  then  there  opens  before  us  a  glorious 
vision  of  what  the  city  might  be  in  which  He 
should  be  totally  received,  where  He  should  be 
wholly  King.  m.  ,8. 


The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  the  nations  are  His  children, 
Yea,  though  their  birthright  they  know  not,  or  deny  ; 
Rending  asunder  what  God  hath  willed  united. 

O  come,  Son  of  Mary, 

Jesu,  our  Redeemer, 
O  come,  King  triumphant,  and  reign  on  earth  ! 

Even  by  the  meek,  who  pray  for  His  appearing, 
Even  by  the  strong,  who  gird  them  to  the  fight, 
The  kingdoms  of  this  world  shall  be  made  our  Christ's 
dominion. 

O  come,  Son  of  Mary, 

Jesu,  our  Redeemer, 
O  come,  King  triumphant,  and  reign  on  earth  ! 

Then  rise  Lord,  we  pray  Thee,  and  heal  the  nations' 

sickness  ! 

Rise  Thou,  for  Whom  amid  the  night  we  wait ! 
Our  eyes  are  dim  with  vigils,  our  hearts  with  hope  are 
aching. 

O  come,  Son  of  Mary, 
Jesu,  our  Redeemer, 
O  come,  King  triumphant,  and  reign  on  earth  ! 

SKLWYN  IMAOK. 


MARCH   19.  79 

Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  all  things 
that  are  written  concerning  the  Son  of  man  shall  be 
accomplished.  —  LUKE  xviii.  30. 

THINK  how  the  life  of  Jesus  gets  its  glory 
and  beauty  from  the  way  in  which  it  is 
always,  from  the  very  first,  tending  on  to  the 
thing  which  it  was  at  last  to  reach.  That 
tendency  began  at  His  birth,  and  it  never 
ceased  until  He  was  hanging  on  the  cross  out 
side  the  city  gate.  Then  He  had  come  to 
Jerusalem  and  it  was  finished.  The  angels 
sang  about  Jerusalem  when  the  shepherds 
heard  them.  The  boy's  thoughts  were  full  of 
Jerusalem  as  He  worked  in  the  carpenter's 
shop.  Egypt,  where  they  carried  the  babe  to 
get  Him  out  of  danger,  was  on  the  way  to 
Jerusalem,  where  He  was  finally  to  be  killed. 
The  visit  to  the  temple  when  He  was  twelve 
years  old,  was  a  nearer  glimpse  of  the  Jerusa 
lem  to  which  He  did  not  then  really  come, 
though  His  feet  trod  its  streets,  but  which  He 
then  accepted  as  the  only  sufficient  issue  of  His 
life.  He  was  baptized  in  consecration  to  the 
life-long  journey  to  Jerusalem.  "  For  this 
cause  was  I  born.  For  this  cause  came  I  into 
the  world."  "  My  time  is  not  yet  come." 
Those  words,  and  words  like  those,  dropped 
here  and  there,  along  His  path,  are  like  foot 
prints  in  the  road  He  walked,  all  pointing  to 
Jerusalem.  At  last  He  came  there.  .  .  .  The 
most  intense,  persistent  purpose  that  the  world 
had  ever  seen,  had  reached  its  completion.  He 
had  come  to  the  Jerusalem  of  His  intention,  and 
mankind  was  saved.  iv  3,s. 


8o  MARCH  20. 


T  N  all  of  Christ's  associations  the  same  inevi 
table  mingling  of  the  sad  and  glad  appears. 
There  was  a  little  family  at  Bethany  in  which 
He  often  made  His  home,  and  the  last  time  He 
left  the  hospitable  door  He  carried  out  with 
Him  two  memories,  — the  memory  of  how  the 
eyes  of  Mary  had  looked  up  into  His  face, 
eager  with  the  desire  to  understand  all  His 
sacred  truth,  and  the  memory  of  how  the  same 
eyes  had  streamed  with  tears  beside  her 
brother's  tomb.  The  same  voices  of  the  pop 
ulace  at  Jerusalem  which  cried  "  Hosanna  !  " 
cried  "Crucify  him!"  before  the  week  was 
done.  One  day  He  saw  a  poor  widow  in  the 
Temple  give  a  true  charity  ;  but  the  same 
sensitiveness  of  soul  which  made  Him  find 
pleasure  in  her  simple  act  laid  Him  open  to  the 
distress  which  only  such  a  soul  could  feel  at 
the  ostentatious  hypocrisy  of  the  Pharisees. 

INFLUENCE,  189,  190. 

Think  you  to  escape 

What  mortal  man  can  never  be  without? 

What  saint  upon  the  earth  has  ever  lived  apart  from 

cross  and  care  ? 
Why,  even  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  was  not  even  for 

one  hour  free  from  His  passion's  pain. 
"  Christ,"  says  He,  "  needs  must  suffer, 
Rising  from  the  dead, 
And  enter  thus  upon  His  glory." 
And  how  do  you  ask  for  another  road 
Than  this  —  the  Royal  Pathway  of  the  Holy  Cross? 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 


MARCH    21.  81 


JESUS  had  a  disciple  whom  He  saw  slipping 
more  and  more  away  from  Him,  who  He 
saw  would  some  day  betray  Him  with  the 
worst  ingratitude.  And  yet  1  think  that  every 
man  whose  sad  and  anxious  office  it  has  ever 
been  to  try  to  lift  a  soul  which  in  spite  of  all 
his  struggles  has  been  always  sinking  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  depths,  will  bear  me 
witness  that  in  the  patience  and  wisdom  and 
faithfulness  which  his  Master  lavished  upon 
Judas  Iscariot  for  years  there  must  have  been 
a  pathetic  pleasure,  peculiar  and  subtle  be 
cause  of  the  growing  hopelessness  of  results 
which  compelled  each  effort  to  find  its  satis 
faction  in  its  own  essential  nature.  .  .  .  And 
both  in  Peter  and  in  Judas  .  .  .  the  truth 
appears  that  it  was  not  for  the  joy  or  for  the 
sorrow  that  their  society  would  bring  that 
Jesus  sought  them.  Peter  and  Judas  alike 
He  sought  because  they  were  the  sons  of 
God  ;  the  pain  or  pleasure  they  would  give 
Him  came  afterwards  and  as  an  accident. 

INFLUENCE,  189. 

A  beneficent  power,  if  we  obey  it,  blesses 
and  helps  us ;  but  the  same  power,  if  we  dis 
obey  it,  curses  and  ruins  us.  That  law  runs 
everywhere.  .  .  .  Was  not  Judas  cursed  by 
the  same  friendship  with  Jesus  that  perfected 
John  ?  1V.  302>  305. 

Judas,  dost  thou  betray  Me  with  a  kiss? 
Canst  thou  find  hell  about  My  lips?  and  miss 
Of  life,  just  at  the  gates  of  life  and  bliss  ? 
IV as  ever  grief  like  Mine  ? 

GEORGE  HERBERT. 


82  MARCH    22. 

r~PHE  great  Christian  sacrament,  which  em- 
*  bodies  this  idea  of  which  we  have  been 
treating,  the  idea  of  the  feeding  of  the  soul 
upon  the  flesh  of  Christ,  is  all  filled  full  of 
memories  of  the  agony  in  which  the  flesh  was 
offered.  What  does  this  mean  ?  Does  it  not 
mean  this,  — that  however  man  longs  for  his 
God ;  however  man  sees  that  in  the  incarnate 
Christ  there  is  the  God  he  needs  and  whom 
his  nature  was  made  to  receive ;  it  is  only 
when  man  sees  that  Divine  Being  suffering  for 
him,  only  when  he  stands  by  the  cross  and 
beholds  the  love  in  the  agony,  that  his  hungry 
nature  is  able  to  take  the  food  it  needs,  that 
is  so  freely  offered  ?  The  flesh  must  be  broken 
before  we  can  take  it.  This  is  what  Christ 
says,  and  the  histories  of  thousands  of  souls 
have  borne  their  witness  to  it,  that  it  is  the 
suffering  Saviour,  the  Saviour  in  His  suffering, 
that  saves  the  soul.  n.  250. 

Would  1  suffer  for  him  that  1  love?    So  wilt  Thou ---  so 

wilt  Thou ! 
So  shall  crown  Thee  the  topmost,  ineffablest,  uttermost 

Crown  — 
And  Thy  love  till  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave  up  nor 

down 

One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in!  It  is  by  no  breath, 
Turn  of  eye,  wave  of  hand,  that  Salvation  joins  issue 

with  death  ! 

As  thy  Love  is  discovered  almighty,  almighty  be  proved 
Thy  power,  that  exists  with  and  for  it,  of  Being  beloved ! 

BROWNJNG. 


MARCH    23.  83 


R  Lord's  death  .  .  .  was  the  gathering  up 
of  the  mighty  love  of  God  in  all  its  mass 
behind  the  barrier  that  separated  the  Father's 
soul  from  the  child's  soul,  until  the  barrier 
gave  way,  and  the  confined  and  hampered 
love  poured  in  and  flooded  the  hungry  soul  of 
"whosoever  believeth."  It  was  not  done 
without  a  struggle.  The  agony,  the  strong 
cryings  and  tears,  the  blood  and  insult  of 
Gethsemane  and  Calvary,  are  everlasting 
pictures  of  what  it  cost.  But  it  was  done.  I 
hear  the  breaking  and  tearing  of  the  obstacle 
of  sin,  and  the  rush  of  great  love  set  free 
to  find  the  soul,  when  with  the  thin  voice  of 
the  dying  Conqueror  that  cry  of  victory,  that 
"It  is  finished  "  was  spoken  so  loud  that  it  has 
pierced  through  history  and  rung  round  the 
world.  It  was  the  deepest  and  most  original 
and  spiritual  nature  of  God,  that  "  love," 
which  "God  is"  breaking  through  every 
encumbrance,  and  declaring  itself  supreme. 
This  is  the  triumph  of  the  Christhood. 

OXFORD  REVIEW. 


Thou  Who  wast  Centre  of  the  whole  earth  on  Calvary 
Reign  over  north  and  south,  east  and  west. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


84  MARCH    24. 

These  things  hare  I  spoken  unto  you,  that  in  Me 
\e  misfit  hare  peace.  In  the  world  \e  shall  hare 
tribulation  ;  but  be  of  good  cheer;  I  hare  orer- 
come  the  world.  — JOHN*  xvi.  33. 

IT  is  as  if  Jesus  walked  under  a  cloud,  and 
yet  felt  always  that  in  the  very  substance 
of  cloud  there  was  suffused  and  softened  light. 
The  cloud  had  light  in  its  darkness,  and  dark 
ness  in  its  light ;  and  so  the  explanation  of  it 
all  was  clear.  A  sunlight  through  the  cloud 
He  felt,  and  behind  the  sunlight  there  must  be 
a  sun.  Behind  the  bitter  circumstances  lay  a 
law,  the  blessed  law  of  obedience,  which  was 
fellowship  with  God  ;  and  behind  the  law  a 
truth,  which  was  God  Himself. 

Under  that  same  cloud  of  circumstances  we 
must  walk  ;  but  if  there  is  behind  it  for  us, 
too,  that  law  and  that  truth  which  really  made 
the  life  of  Jesus, — the  law  of  obedience  and 
the  truth  of  sonship, — then  for  us  too,  light 
shall  come  through  the  cloud,  and  mingling 
with  its  darkness,  make  that  new  condition  in 
which  it  is  best  for  a  man's  soul  to  live,  that 
sweet  and  strong  condition  in  which  both  joy 
and  sorrow  may  have  place,  but  which  is 
greater  than  either  of  them, — the  condition 
which  He  called  peace.  INFLUENCE,  204,  205. 

There  is  no  calm  like  that  when  storm  is  done  ; 
There  is  no  pleasure  keen  as  pain's  release  : 
There  is  no  joy  that  lies  so  deep  as  peace, 

No  peace  so  deep  as  that  by  struggle  won. 

HELEN  GRAY  CONK. 


MARCH    25.  85 

Behold  I  am  alire  for  evermore.  —  REV.  I.  18. 

T""HIS  new  life, — the  life  that  has  conquered 
death  by  tasting  it,  which  has  enriched 
itself  with  a  before  unknown  sympathy  with 
men  whose  lives  are  forever  tending  towards, 
and  at  last  all  going  down  into  the  darkness  of 
the  grave,  —this  life  stretches  on  and  out  for 
ever.  It  is  to  know  no  ending.  So  long  as 
there  are  men  living  and  dying,  so  long  above 
them  and  around  them  there  shall  be  the 
Christ,  the  God-man,  who  liveth,  and  was 
dead,  and  is  aHve  for  evermore.  i.  2I5. 

.     .     .     ay,  that  Life  and  Death 
Of  which  I  wrote  "  it  was  "  —  to  me,  it  is  ; 
—  Is,  here  and  now  :  I  apprehend  naught  else. 
Is  not  God  now  i'  the  world  His  power  first  made? 
Is  not  His  love  at  issue  still  with  sin, 
Closed  with  and  cast  and  conquered,  crucified 
Visibly  when  a  wrong  is  done  on  earth  ? 
Love,  wrong,  and  pain,  what  see  I  else  around? 
Yea,  and  the  Resurrection  and  Uprise 
To  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  —  what  is  it  beside, 
When  such  truth,  breaking  bounds,  o'erfloods  my  soul, 
And,  as  I  saw  the  sin  and  death,  even  so 
See  I  the  need  yet  transiency  of  both, 
The  good  and  glory  consummated  thence  ? 

BROWNING. 


86  MARCH    26. 

A  S  you  sit  thinking  of  man's  fragmentari- 
<*  ness,  his  certainty  of  death,  his  doubt 
about  a  future,  let  this  voice  come  to  you,  a 
voice  clear  with  personality,  and  sweet  and 
strong  with  love:  "I  am  He  that  liveth,  and 
was  dead  ;  and  am  alive  for  evermore."  "  He 
that  liveth!  "  And  at  once  your  fragment  of 
life  falls  into  its  place  in  the  eternity  of  life 
that  is  bridged  by  His  being.  ''He  that  was 
dead  !  "  And  at  once  death  changes  from  the 
terrible  end  of  life  into  a  most  mysterious  but 
no  longer  terrible  experience  of  life.  "  He 
that  is  alive  for  evermore  !  "  And  not  merely 
there  is  a  future  beyond  the  grave,  but  it  is 
inhabited  by  One  who  speaks  to  us,  who  went 
there  by  the  way  that  we  must  go,  who  sees 
us  and  can  help  us  as  we  make  our  way  along, 
and  will  receive  us  when  we  come  there. 

I.  ;i6. 

EMMAUSWARD. 

Lord  Christ,  if  Thou  art  with  us  and  these  eyes 
Are  holden,  while  we  go  sadly  and  say 
"  We  hoped  it  had  been  He,  and  now  to-day 
Is  the  third  day,  and  hope  within  us  dies," 
Bear  with  us,  oh  our  Master,  Thou  art  wise 
And  knowest  our  foolishness  ;  we  do  not  pray 
"  Declare  Thyself,  since  weary  grows  the  way 
And  faith's  new  burden  hard  upon  us  lies." 
Nay,  choose  Thy  time  ;  but  ah  !  Whoe'er  Thou  art 
Leave  us  not ;  where  have  we  heard  any  voice 
Like  Thine?     Our  hearts  burn  in  us  as  we  go  ; 
Stay  with  us  ;  break  our  bread  ;  so,  for  our  part 
Ere  darkness  falls  haply  we  may  rejoice, 
Haply  when  day  has  been  far  spent  may  know. 

EDWARD  DOWDEN 


MARCH   27.  87 


Peace  1  leave  with  you.  —  JOHN  xiv.   27. 

IF  we  are  really  Christ's,  then  back  into  the 
very  bosom  of  His  Father  where  Christ  is 
hid,  there  He  will  carry  us.  We  too  shall  look 
out  and  be  as  calm  and  as  independent  as  He 
is.  The  needs  of  men  shall  touch  us  just  as 
keenly  as  they  touch  Him,  but  the  sneers  and 
strifes  of  men  shall  pass  us  by  as  they  pass  by 
Him  and  leave  no  mark  on  His  unruffled  life. 
.  .  .  For  us,  just  as  for  Him,  this  will  not 
mean  a  cold  and  selfish  separation  from  our 
brethren.  We  shall  be  infinitely  closer  to 
their  real  life  when  we  separate  ourself  from 
their  outside  strifes  and  superficial  pride,  and 
know  and  love  them  truly  by  knowing  and 
loving  them  in  God. 

This  is  the  power  and  progress  of  true 
Christianity.  It  leads  us  into,  it  abounds  in 
peace.  It  is  a  brave,  vigorous  peace,  full  of 
life,  full  of  interest  and  work.  It  is  a  peace 
that  means  thoroughness,  that  refuses  to  waste 
its  force  and  time  in  little  superficial  tumults 
which  come  to  nothing,  while  there  is  so  much 
real  work  to  be  done,  so  much  real  help  to  be 
given,  and  such  a  real  life  to  be  lived  with 
God.  That  peace,  His  peace,  may  Jesus 
give  to  us  all.  \,  97. 

Grant  us  Thy  peace,  that  like  a  deepening  river 
Swells  ever  outward  to  a  sea  of  praise. 

O  Thou,  of  peace  the  only  Lord  and  Giver, 
Grant  us  Thy  peace,  O  Saviour,  all  our  days  ! 

ELIZA  SCUDDER. 


MARCH  28. 


We  see  Jesus,  who  was  made  a  little  lower  than 
the  angels  for  the  suffering  of  death,  crowned  with 
glorv  and  honor ;  that  He  by  the  grace  of  God, 
should  taste  death  for  every  man. 

Forasmuch  then  as  the  children  are  partakers  of 
flesh  and  blood,  He  also  Himself  likewise  took  part 
of  the  same ;  that  through  death  He  might  destroy 
him  who  had  the  power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil; 
and  deliver  them  who  through  fear  of  death  were 
all  their  lifetime  subject  to  bondage. 

HEB.  ii.  9,  14,  15. 

A  S  Christ  drew  near  to  death,  He  Himself 
-**•  trembled.  It  was  an  experience  of  all  His 
creation,  but  He  had  never  felt  it.  To  His 
humanity,  His  assumed  flesh,  it  seemed  terri 
ble.  Gethsemane  bears  witness  how  terrible 
it  seemed.  But  He  passed  into  it  for  love  of  us. 
And  as  He  came  out  from  it  He  declared  its 
nature.  "  It  is  an  experience  of  life,  not  an 
end  of  life.  Life  goes  on  through  it  and  comes 
out  unharmed.  Look  at  me.  1  am  He  that 
liveth,  and  was  dead!  "  1.214,215. 

By  Thy  joy  when  Thy  blessed  Humanity  was  glorified 
by  God  the  Father  in  Thy  Resurrection, 

Good  Lord  deliver  us. 

By  Thy  joy,  when  the  Love  which  on  the  Cross  filled 
Thee  with  intolerable  anguish,  in  the  Resurrection 
filled  Thee  with  incomparable  honour  and  Glory, 

Good  Lord  deliver  us. 
BOOK  OF  LITANIES.    NEALE. 


MARCH  29.  89 

And  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place  for  you,  I  will 
come  again  and  receive  you  unto  Myself ;  that  where 
I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also.  —  JOHN  xiv.  3. 

1AM  sure  that  in  the  Bible  something  is  prom 
ised,  some  close,  perpetual  association  of 
the  souls  of  Christ's  redeemed  to  Him,  which, 
over  and  above  the  likeness  which  is  to  come 
between  their  souls  and  His,  shall  correspond 
in  some  celestial  way  to  that  close,  visible, 
tangible  propinquity  with  which  they  sat  by 
one  another  at  the  table  in  the  upper  chamber. 
The  "seeing  His  face,"  the  "walking  with 
Him  in  white,"  in  heaven,  are  not  wholly  fig 
ures.  What  they  mean  those  know  to-day 
who  through  the  lapsing  years  have  gone  from 
us  one  by  one  to  be  with  Christ. 

Take  me  away,  and  in  the  lowest  deep 

There  let  me  be, 
And  there  in  hope  the  lone  night-watches  keep, 

Told  out  for  me. 
There,  motionless  and  happy  in  my  pain, 

Lone,  not  forlorn,  — 
There  will  1  sing  my  sad  perpetual  strain 

Until  the  morn. 
There  will  I  sing,  and  soothe  my  stricken  breast, 

Which  ne'er  can  cease 
To  throb  and  pine  and  languish,  till  possest 

Of  its  Sole  Peace. 
There  will  I  sing  my  absent  Lord  and  Love  : 

Take  me  away, 

That  sooner  1  may  rise,  and  go  above, 
And  see  Him  in  the  truth  of  everlasting  day. 

JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN, 


90  MARCH  30. 

As  the  Father  knoweth  Me,  even  so  know  I  the 
Father.  —  JOHN  x.  15. 

"'"THE  Father  knoweth  me."  That  means, 
1  "God  has  a  will  for  every  act  of 
mine."  What  then  can  "  I  know  the  Father," 
mean,  except  "  In  every  act  of  mine  1  do  the 
Father's  will."  Obedience  becomes  the  organ 
and  utterance,  nay  becomes  the  substance  and 
reality  of  knowledge  on  the  side  of  him  who  is 
aware  that  in  this  more  special  sense  God 
knows  him.  1  think  of  Jesus  on  that  day 
when  He  called  Lazarus  back  from  the  dead 
to  life.  He  travels  all  the  way  from  Galilee 
to  Bethany.  At  last  He  stands  beside  the 
tomb.  His  soul  is  full  of  sympathy.  The 
dreadfulness  of  death  oppresses  Him.  Then 
He  becomes  aware  of  a  will  of  God.  .  .  . 
Behold  !  He  lifts  His  head.  His  face  shines 
like  the  sun !  The  gloom  is  gone !  He 
stretches  out  His  hand!  He  opens  His  lips 
with  the  cry  of  life  !  "  Lazarus,  come  forth  !  " 
"And  he  that  was  dead  came  forth,  bound 
hand  and  foot  with  grave  clothes  !  " 

God's  will  and  Christ's  obedience!  Here 
then  there  is  the  perfect  mutualness,  the  abso 
lute  understanding  and  harmony  of  the  Father 
and  the  Son.  If  it  were  not  the  morning  of 
the  miracle  at  Bethany,  but  the  awful  morning 
of  the  cross,  it  would  be  still  the  same. 
"Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  My 
spirit."  There,  in  those  words  of  completed 
obedience,  the  mutual  knowledge  of  Father  and 
Son  is  perfect,  and  being  blends  with  being ; 
the  veil  and  barrier  of  the  human  flesh  no 
longer  hangs  between.  iv.  290,291. 


MARCH  31.  9l 


^FHERE  is  a  class  of  passages  in  the  Bible 
which  to  me  seem  mysteriously  beauti 
ful,  and  which  appear  to  rest  the  peace  of 
the  human  soul  upon  the  mere  fact  of  the 
existence  of  the  larger  life  of  God.  Such  is 
that  verse  of  the  forty-sixth  Psalm,  "Be  still, 
and  know  that  I  am  God."  "  Thou  shalt 
know  that  I,  the  Lord,  am,"  is  the  noble 
promise  that  comes  again  and  again,  full  of 
reassurance.  And  when  God's  people,  tram 
pled,  bruised,  broken,  trodden  in  the  dust  in 
Egypt,  asked  by  Moses  for  the  name  of  the 
God  who  had  promised  them  His  deliverance, 
it  was  a  mere  assertion  of  the  awful  and 
supreme  existence  that  was  given  in  reply : 
"  I  AM  hath  sent  me."  It  is  because  God  is, 
that  man  is  bidden  to  be  at  peace.  1. 103, 104. 

It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That,  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so : 
That,  howsoe'er  I  stray  and  range, 
Whate'er  I  do,  Thou  dost  not  change. 
I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 
That,  if  I  slip,  Thou  dost  not  fall. 

ARTHUR  HL'GH  CLOUGH. 


92  APRIL    i. 

JUST  as  the  children's  lives  set  themselves 
into  the  life  of  their  father  which  sc-ems 
to  them  really  eternal;  just  as  the  leaves 
coming  and  going,  growing  and  dropping,  find 
their  reason  and  consistency  in  the  long,  un 
changing  life  of  the  tree  on  which  they  grow  ; 
so  our  lives  find  their  place  in  this  long,  un 
changing  life  of  Christ,  and  lose  the  vexa 
tion  of  their  own  ever-shifting  pasts  and 
futures  in  the  perpetual  present  of  His  being. 
It  is  the  thought  of  an  eternal  God  that  really 
gives  consistency  to  the  fragmentary  lives  of 
men,  the  fragmentary  history  of  the  world. 
A  Christ  that  liveth  redeems  and  rescues  into 
His  eternity  the  broken,  temporary  lives  and 
works  of  His  disciples.  i.  2I3. 

Hearken  !  Hearken ! 

God  speaketh  in  thy  soul, 

Saying,  O  thou  that  movest 

With  feeble  steps  across  this  earth  of  mine, 

To  break  beside  the  fount  thy  golden  bowl, 

And  spill  its  purple  wine, 

Look  up  to  heaven  and  see  how  like  a  scroll 

My  right  hand  hath  thy  immortality 

In  an  eternal  grasping. 

ELIZABETH  BARRETT  BROWNING. 


APRIL    2.  93 

The  tasks,  the  joys  of  earth  the  same  in  heaven  will  be  ; 
Only  the  little  brook  has  widened  to  a  sea. 

R.  C.  TRENCH. 

LET  this  be  the  glory  that  gathers  around 
your  daily  experiences,  my  Christian 
friend's.  Poor,  weak,  homely,  commonplace 
as  they  may  be,  they  are  preparing  you  for 
something  far  greater  and  more  perfect  than 
themselves.  Be  true  in  them,  learn  them  down 
to  their  depths  and  they  shall  open  heaven  to 
you  some  day.  The  powers  and  affection 
which  are  training  in  your  family,  your  busi 
ness,  and  your  church  are  to  find  their  eternal 
occupation  along  the  streets  of -gold.  "Well 
done,  good  and  faithful  servant,  thou  hast  been 
faithful  over  a  few  things.  I  will  make  thee 
ruler  over  many  things.  Enter  thou  into  the 
glory  of  thy  Lord."  And  so  the  long  life  of 
heaven  shall  be  bound  to  the  short  life  of  earth 
forever.  v.  3°4,  305. 

Courage  in  all  the  worlds  is  the  same  cour 
age.  Truth  before  the  throne  of  God  is  the 
same  thing  as  when  neighbor  talks  with  neigh 
bor  on  the  street.  Mercy  will  grow  tenderer 
and  finer,  but  will  be  the  old  blessed  balm  of 
life  in  the  fields  of  eternity  that  it  was  in  your 
workshop  and  your  home.  Unselfishness  will 
expand  and  richen  till  it  enfolds  the  life  like 
sunshine,  but  it  will  be  the  same  self-denial, 
opening  into  a  richer  self-indulgence,  which 
it  was  when  it  first  stole  in  with  one  thin 
sunbeam  on  the  startled  soul.  There  is  no 
new  world  of  virtues  in  any  heaven  or  in  any 
heavenly  experience  of  life.  v.  13. 


94  APRIL    3. 

T~\ROP  the  old  remnants  of  a  past  life  into 
*-s  the  ever-fruitful  soil,  and  all  the  possi 
bilities  of  new  life  open.  The  spring-time 
finds  last  summer's  roots  still  remaining  in  the 
ground,  and  quickens  them  to  life  again,  and 
multiplies  them  into  a  richer  summer  still.  In 
genious  Nature  finds  a  germ  wherever  it  is 
dropped ;  but  without  the  germ  she  will  do 
nothing.  Mere  spontaneity  she  disowns  and 
disproves  more  and  more.  Think  what  a  place 
the  world  would  be  to  live  in  if  this  were  not 
so,  if  nature  were  a  wizard,  fitful  and  whim 
sical,  doing  her  wonders  in  no  sequel  or  con 
nection  with  each  other,  with  her  pets  and 
favorites,  instead  of  being,  as  she  is,  a  mother 
with  her  great,  wise,  reasonable  laws  of  the 
house  which  press  alike  on  all  her  children, 
which  no  one  of  the  children  thinks  of  seeing 
changed  or  violated.  That  is  what  makes  the 
world  such  a  good  home  for  man  to  dwell  in, 
his  school-room  and  his  home  at  once. 


April  cold  with  dropping  rain, 
Willows  and  lilacs  brings  again 
The  whistle  of  returning  birds, 
And  trumpet-lowing  of  the  herds  ; 
The  scarlet  maple-keys  betray 
What  potent  blood  hath  modest  May  ; 
What  fiery  force  the  earth  renews, 
The  wealth  of  forms,  the  flush  of  hues  ; 
What  Joy  in  rosy  waves  outpoured, 
Flows  from  the  heart  of  Love,  the  Lord. 

EMERSON. 


APRIL   4.  95 

Choose  you  this  day  whom  ye  will  serve. 
The  Lord  our  God  will  we  serve  and  His  voice 
will  we  obey. — JOSH.  xxiv.  15,  24. 

""THERE  is  a  noble  economy  of  the  deepest 
1  life.  There  is  a  watchful  reserve  which 
keeps  guard  over  the  powers  of  profound  anx 
iety  and  devoted  work,  and  refuses  to  give 
them  away  to  any  first  applicant  who  comes 
and  asks.  Wealth  rolls  up  to  the  door  and 
says,  "Give  me  your  great  anxiety;"  and 
you  look  up  and  answer,  "No,  not  for  you; 
here  is  a  little  half-indifferent  desire  which  is 
all  that  you  deserve."  Popularity  comes  and 
says,  "Work  with  all  your  might  for  me;" 
and  you  reply,  "No;  you  are  not  of  conse 
quence  enough  for  that.  Here  is  a  small 
fragment  of  energy  which  you  may  have,  if 
you  want  it;  but  that  is  all."  Even  knowl 
edge  comes  and  says,  "  Give  your  whole  soul 
to  me;"  and  you  must  answer  once  more, 
"No;  great,  good,  beautiful  as  you  are,  you 
are  not  worthy  of  a  man's  whole  soul."  .  .  . 
But  then  at  last  comes  One  greater  than  them 
all,  —  God  comes  with  His  supreme  demand 
for  goodness  and  for  character,  and  then  you 
open  the  doors  of  your  whole  nature  and  bid 
your  holiest  and  profoundest  devotion  to  come 
trooping  forth.  Now  you  rejoice  that  you  kept 
something  which  you  would  not  give  to  any 
lesser  lord.  v.  248,249. 


96  APRIL    5. 

TF  we  can  live  in  Christ  and  have  His  life  in 
1  us,  shall  not  the  spiritual  balance  and  pro 
portion  which  were  His  become  ours  too  ?  If 
He  were  really  our  Master  and  our  Saviour, 
could  it  be  that  we  could  get  so  eager  and 
excited  over  little  things  ?  If  we  were  His, 
could  we  possibly  be  wretched  over  the  losing 
of  a  little  money  which  we  do  not  need,  or  be 
exalted  at  the  sound  of  a  little  praise  which 
we  know  that  we  only  half  deserve  and  that 
the  praisers  only  half  intend  ?  A  moment's 
disappointment,  a  moment's  gratification,  and 
then  the  ocean  would  be  calm  again  and  quite 
forgetful  of  the  ripple  which  disturbed  its 
bosom.  v.  251. 

He  who  loves  Jesus  and  loves  truth, 

The  man  of  really  inner  life, 

From  unchecked  passions  free, 

Can  turn  himself  with  ease  to  God, 

And  lift  himself  above  himself  in  thought, 

And  rest  in  peace,  enjoying  Him. 

The  man  who  tastes  life  as  it  really  is, 
Not  as  men  talk  of  it, 
Not  as  men  value  it, 
He  is  the  true  philosopher, 
Taught  of  God,  and  not  of  men. 
The  man  who  learns  to  walk  the  inward  road, 
Weighing  outward  life  as  little. 
Asking  for  no  set  places,  wanting  no  fixed  times 
To  pray  his  holy  prayers, 
He  soon  collects  his  thoughts, 
Because  he  never  dissipates  his  life 
Upon  the  outward  world. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS 


APRIL   6.  97 

The  joy  of  the  Lord  is  your  strength. 

NEH.  viii.   10. 

T^HE  denial,  the  trial,  the  scourging,  the 
crucifixion,  follow  fast.  Yet  even  in  the 
midst  of  their  horror  there  is  room  for  some 
momentary  gleams  of  joy.  The  wavering 
of  Pilate ;  the  cries  of  a  few  sympathetic 
voices  among  the  hooting  mobs  as  He  passed 
through  the  street ;  the  group  of  friends  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross  ;  and  then  that  great  joy 
which  must  have  fallen  into  His  spirit  when 
from  the  other  cross  there  came  a  cry  of  faith 
and  hope  ;  at  last  the  utter  satisfaction  which 
fills  His  soul  as  He  exclaims,  "  It  is  finished," 
—  all  of  these  come  in  to  show  that  the  very 
agony  of  agonies  was  charged  with  the  divine 

Capacity   of  joy.  INFLUENCE,  204. 

In  the  Cross  is  safety, 
In  the  Cross  is  life, 
In  the  Cross  protection  from  our  foes, 
In  the  Cross  is  sweetness 
Poured  on  us  from  above  ; 
In  the  Cross  is  spiritual  joy, 
In  the  Cross  the  sum  of  virtues  ; 
In  the  Cross  is  holiness  in  perfect  beauty. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 


98  APRIL    7. 

The  sower  soweth  the  word  .  .  .  and  these  are 
they  which  are  sown  on  good  ground  ;  such  as  hear 
the  word,  and  receive  it,  and  bring  forth  fruit, 
some  thirty  fold,  some  sixty,  and  some  an  hundred. 

MARK  iv.  14,  20. 

TF  one  gives  me  a  diamond  to  carry  across 
*  the  sea,  I  may  estimate  its  value  and 
know  just  how  much  poorer  I  shall  be  and  the 
world  will  be  if  1  let  it  drop  into  the  water 
and  it  sinks  to  the  bottom.  But  if  one  gives 
me  a  seed  of  some  new  fruit  to  bring  to 
this  new  land,  1  look  at  it  with  awe.  It  is 
mysteriously  valuable.  1  cannot  tell  what 
preciousness  is  in  it.  Harvests  on  harvests, 
food  for  whole  generations,  are  shut  up  in  its 
little  bulk.  There  always  must  be  a  differ 
ence  as  to  the  essential  value  set  on  truth, 
between  him  who  thinks  that  truth  is  final 
and  him  who  thinks  that  truth  is  germinal, 
between  him  who  thinks  it  a  diamond  and  him 
who  thinks  it  a  seed.  ...  In  the  name  of  all 
you  hope  to  know,  cling  close  to  what  you 
know  already.  ...  It  is  not  good  for  any 
man  to  let  the  vastness  of  unknown  truth 
make  him  disparage  the  little  that  he  knows. 
It  is  good  for  him  to  count  his  little  precious 
because  it  is  of  the  same  kind  with,  and  may 
introduce  him  to,  the  greater  after  which  he 
aspires.  n.  ,39. 


APRIL    8.  99 

'"THE  devils  of  discontent,  despair,  selfish- 
*  ness,  sensuality,  how  they  are  scattered 
before  that  voice,  really  heard,  of  the  risen 
and  everlasting  Christ  !  He  stands  before  the 
door  of  His  tomb  and  speaks,  and  these  dark 
forms  that  have  enchained  the  souls  and  fet 
tered  the  activities  of  men  fall  on  their  faces, 
like  the  Roman  soldiers,  who  in  the  gray  dawn 
of  the  morning  saw  Him  come  forth  from  the 
tomb  of  the  Arimathean,  and  trembled  with 
fright,  and  knew  that  their  day  was  over,  and 
that  the  prisoner  they  thought  was  dead  was 
indeed  too  strong  for  them  to  keep.  i.  2l6,  2I7. 

Good,  to  forgive  Wander  at  will, 
Best,  to  forget !  Day  after  day,  — 

Living,  we  fret,  Wander  away, 

Dying  we  live.  Wandering  still. 

Fretless  and  free,  Soul  that  canst  soar  ! 
Soul,  clap  thy  pinion  !  Body  may  slumber  : 

Earth  have  dominion  Body  shall  cumber 

Body,  o'er  thee  !  Soul-flight  no  more. 

Waft  of  soul's  wing ! 

What  lies  above? 

Sunshine  and  Love, 
Sky-blue  and  Spring! 
Body  hides  where? 

Ferns  of  all  feather, 

Mosses  and  heather, 
Yours  be  the  care ! 

BROWNING. 


ioo  APRIL   9. 


"THE  whole  position  of  duty  is  elevated  by 
*  the  thought,  the  knowledge  of  immor 
tality.  Duty  is  a  vast  power,  and  needs  a 
vast  world  to  work  in.  .  .  .  Duty  is  the  one 
thing  on  earth  that  is  so  vital  that  it  can  go 
through  death  and  come  to  glory.  Duty  is  the 
one  seed  that  has  such  life  in  it  that  it  can 
lie  as  long  as  God  will  in  the  mummy  hand  of 
death,  and  yet  be  ready  any  moment  to  start 
into  new  growth  in  the  new  soil  where  He 
shall  set  it.  .  . 


Stern  Daughter  of  the  Voice  of  God  ! 

O  Duty  !  it  that  name  thou  love 

Who  art  a  light  to  guide,  a  rod 

To  check  the  erring,  and  reprove  ; 

Thou,  who  art  victory  and  law 

When  empty  terrors  overawe  ; 

From  vain  temptations  dost  set  free  ; 

And  calm'st  the  weary  strife  of  frail  humanity  ! 

Stern  Lawgiver  !  yet  thou  dost  wear 
The  Godhead's  most  benignant  grace  ; 
Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair 
As  is  the  smile  upon  thy  face  : 
Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads  ; 
Thou  dost  preserve  the  Stars  from  wrong  ; 
And  the   most  ancient   Heavens,   through   Thee,   are 
fresh  and  strong. 

WORDSWORTH. 


APRIL    10.  ioi 


/  will  lift   up   mine  eyes   unto   the  hills,  from 
whence  cometh  my  help.  —  Ps.  cxxi.    i. 

THE  fear  of  pain,  the  fear  of  disgrace,  the  fear 
of  discomfort,  and  the  shame  that  comes 
with  the  loftiest  companionship,  —  we  may 
have  to  appeal  to  them  all  for  support  in  the 
hours,  which  come  so  often  in  our  lives,  when 
we  are  very  weak.  But,  after  all,  the  appeal 
to  these  helpers  is  not  the  final  cry  of  the  soul. 
They  are  like  the  bits  of  wood  that  the  drown 
ing  sailor  clutches  when  he  must  have  some 
thing  at  the  instant  or  he  perishes.  They  are 
not  the  solid  shore  on  which  at  last  he  drops 
his  tired  feet  and  knows  that  he  is  safe.  Or 
rather,  perhaps,  the  man  who  trusts  them  is 
like  a  dweller  in  some  valley  down  which  a 
freshet  pours,  who  drives  the  stakes  of  his 
imperilled  tent  deeper  into  the  ground ;  not 
like  one  who  leaves  the  valley  altogether  and 
escapes  to  the  mountain  where  the  freshet 
never  comes.  .  .  .  Not  until  a  man  has  laid 
hold  "behind  and  above  everything  else" 
upon  the  absolute  assurance  that  the  right  is 
right  and  that  the  God  of  righteousness  will 
give  His  strength  to  any  feeblest  will  in  all  His 
universe  which  tries  to  do  the  right  in  simple 
unquestioning  consecration  ;  not  until  he  has 
thus  appealed  to  duty  and  to  the  dear  God  of 
whose  voice  she  is  the  "  stern  daughter  ;"  not 
till  then  has  he  summoned  to  his  aid  the  final 
perfect  help ;  only  then  has  he  really  looked 
up  to  the  hills.  n.  275, 276. 


102  APRIL    ii. 


God  dwelleth  in  a  light  far  out  of  human  ken  — 
Become  thyself  that  light  and  thou  shalt  see  Him  then. 

ANGELUS  SILESIUS. 


IT  is  a  blessed  thing  that  in  all  times,  and 
never  more  richly  than  in  the  Reformation 
days,  there  have  always  been  other  men  to 
whom  religion  has  not  presented  itself  as  a 
system  of  doctrine,  but  as  an  elemental  life  in 
which  the  soul  of  man  came  into  very  direct 
and  close  communion  with  the  soul  of  God.  It 
is  the  mystics  of  every  age  who  have  done 
most  to  blend  the  love  of  truth  and  the  love  of 
man  within  the  love  of  God,  and  so  to  keep 
alive  or  to  restore  a  healthy  tolerance.  In 
deed,  the  mystic  spirit  has  been  almost  like  a 
deep  and  quiet  pool  in  which  tolerance,  when 
it  has  been  growing  old  and  weak,  has  been 
again  and  again  sent  back  to  bathe  itself  and 
to  renew  its  youth  and  vigor.  The  German 
mystics  of  the  fourteenth  century  made  ready 
for  the  great  enfranchisement  of  the  fifteenth. 
The  English  Platonists,  who  had  the  mystic 
spirit  very  strongly,  became  almost  the  re- 
creators  of  tolerance  in  the  English  Church. 
The  mysticism  of  to-day  gives  great  hope  for 
the  earnest  freedom  of  the  future. 

TOLERANCE,  35,  56. 


APRIL    12.  103 


THE  little  lives  which  do  in  little  ways  that 
which  the  life  of  Jesus  does  completely 
the  noble  characters  of  which  we  think  we 
have  the  right  to  say  that  they  are  the  lights 
of  human  history,  .  .  .  they  reveal  and  they 
inspire.  .  .  .  They  faintly  catch  the  feeble 
reflection  of  His  life  who  is  the  true  Light  of 
the  World,  the  real  illumination  and  inspira 
tion  of  humanity.  v.  5,  6. 

"  Faces,  faces,  faces  of  the  streaming  marching  surge, 
Streaming  on  the  weary  road,  toward  the  awful 

steep, 
Whence  your  glow  and  glory,  as  ye  set  to  that  sharp 

verge, 
Faces  lit  as  sunlit  stars,  shining  as  ye  sweep?  " 


Lo,  the  Light !  (they   answer)    O  the  pure,  the  pulsing 

Light, 

Treating  like  a  heart  of  life,  like  a  heart  of  love, 
Soaring,  searching,  filling  all  the  breadth  and  depth  and 

height, 
Welling,  whelming  with  its  peace  worlds  below,  above.' 

"  O  my  soul,  how  artthou  to  that  living  Splendor  blind, 

Sick  with  thy  desire  to  see  even  as  these  men  see !  — 

Yet  to  look  upon  them  is  to  know  that  God  hath 

shined : 

Faces  lit  as  sunlit  stars,  be  all  my  light  to  me  !  " 

HELEN  GRAY  CONE. 


104  APRIL    13. 


TJERE  is  the  power  of  true  self-sacrifice; 
here  is  the  secret  which  takes  out  of  it 
all  the  bitterness  and  brutality.  Always  it  is 
the  giving  up  of  a  symbol  that  you  may  have 
the  reality.  In  the  great  sacrifice  of  all,  Christ 
lays  down  His  life,  but  it  is  that  He  may  take 
it  again.  Do  you  think  that  Christ  did  not 
care  for  life  and  all  that  makes  life  beautiful  to 
us  ?  Surely  He  did,  but  He  cared  more  for  that 
which  they  represent,  —  the  living  purely,  the 
doing  of  His  Father's  will,  and  the  serving  of 
His  brethren.  That  was  why  He  was  able  to 
do  without  the  things  which  seem  to  be  abso 
lutely  essential  to  our  lives;  because  He  was 
so  much  more  full  than  we  are  of  the  beauty 
and  glory  of  the  life  with  God.  i.  2go,  2gi, 


Could  we  but  crush  that  ever-craving  lust 
For  bliss,  which  kills  all  bliss,  and  live  our  life, 
Our  barren  unit  life,  to  find  again 
A  thousand  lives  in  those  for  whom  we  die  ! 
So  were  we  men  and  women,  and  should  hold 
Our  rightful  rank  in  God's  great  universe, 
Wherein,  in  heaven  and  earth,  by  will  or  nature, 

Naught  lives  for  self. 

CHARLES 


APRIL    14.  105 

THE  onward  reach,  the  struggle  to  an  ap 
prehended  purpose,  the  straight  clear 
line  right  from  His  own  self-knowledge  to  His 
work,  was  perfect  in  the  Lord.  "  For  this 
cause  was  1  born,"  He  cried.  His  life  pierced 
like  an  arrow  through  the  cloud  of  aimless 
lives,  never  for  a  moment  losing  its  direction, 
hurrying  on  with  a  haste  and  assurance  which 
were  divine.  .  .  .  We  revel  in  the  making 
of  specialists.  Perhaps  we  overdo  it,  but  no 
thinking  man  dreams  of  saying  that  the  thing 
itself  is  wrong.  This  movement  of  a  man's 
whole  life  along  some  clearly  apprehended  line 
of  self-development  and  self-accomplishment, 
this  reaching  of  a  life  out  forward  to  its  own 
best  attainment,  no  man  can  live  as  a  man 
ought  to  live  without  it.  The  men  who  have 
no  purpose  are  good  for  nothing.  They  lie  in 
the  world  like  mere  pulpy  masses,  giving  it  no 
strength  or  interest  or  character.  n. 

Cleave  thou  the  waves  that  weltering  to  and  fro 
Surge  multitudinous.    The  eternal  Powers 
Of  sun,  moon,  stars,  the  air,  the  hurrying  hours, 

The  winged  winds,  the  still  dissolving  show 

Of  clouds  in  calm  or  storm,  forever  flow 
Above  thee ;  while  the  abysmal  sea  devours 
The  untold  dead  insatiate,  where  it  lowers 

O'er  glooms  unfathom'd,  limitless,  below. 

No  longer  on  the  golden-fretted  sands, 
Where  many  a  shallow  tide  abortive  chafes, 

Mayst  thou  delay  ;  life  onward  sweeping  blends 
With  far-off  heaven  :  the  dauntless  one  who  braves 

The  perilous  flood  with  calm  unswerving  hands, 
The  elements  sustain  :  cleave  thou  the  waves. 

MATHILDE  BLIND. 


io6  APRIL    15. 


T  ET  us  stand  in  the  country  he  has  saved 
and  which  is  to  be  his  grave  and  monu 
ment,  and  say  of  Abraham  Lincoln  what  he 
said  of  the  soldiers  who  had  died  at  Gettys 
burg.  He  stood  there  with  their  graves  before 
him,  and  these  are  the  words  he  said : 


"  We  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we  can 
not  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men  who  struggled 
here  have  consecrated  it  far  beyond  our  power  to  add  or 
detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember 
what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they 
did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated 
to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here 
have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us 
to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before 
us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  de 
votion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full 
measure  of  devotion  ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain  ;  and  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

May  God  make  us  worthy  of  the  memory  of 

Abraham  Lincoln.  SERMON  ON  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


APRIL    10.  107 


IT  seems  to  me  that  this  sight  of  the  super- 
ficialness  of  our  own  judgments  of  others, 
the  way  in  which  we  have  often  pronounced 
solemn-sounding  verdicts  which  really  meant 
nothing,  and  uttered  cheap  ridicule  which  we 
should  have  despised  the  man  if  he  had  minded, 
gives  us  very  often  a  startling  sense  of  what  a 
superficial  thing  this  criticism  is  that  comes  to 
us  from  our  brethren  of  which  we  make  so 
much  and  to  which  we  are  always  trimming 
our  action. 


O  Lord  of  bliss, 

Remember  this : 

How  man's  mind  is  like  the  moon  ; 
Is  variable, 
Frail  and  unstable, 
At  morning,  night,  and  noon. 
Though  he,  unkind, 
Have  not  in  mind 
What  Ye  for  him  have  done, 
Yet  have  compassion, 
For  our  salvation 
Forsake  not  man  so  soon. 
A  while  him  spare, 
He  shall  prepare 
Himself  to  You  anon  ; 
With  heart  and  mind, 
Loving  and  kind, 
To  serve  but  You  alone  ! 


io8  APRIL    17. 

'"THE  great  impression  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  as 
1  it  seems  to  me,  must  always  be  of  the 
subordinate  importance  of  those  things  in 
which  only  the  aesthetic  nature  finds  its  pleas 
ure.  There  is  no  condemnation  of  them  in 
that  wise  deep  life.  But  the  fact  always  must 
remain  that  the  wisest  deepest  life  that  was 
ever  lived  left  them  on  one  side,  was  satisfied 
without  them.  And  His  religion,  while  it  has 
developed  and  delighted  in  their  culture,  has 
always  kept  two  strong  habits  with  reference  to 
art  which  showed  that  in  it  was  still  the  spirit 
of  its  Master.  It  has  always  been  restless 
under  the  sway  of  any  art  that  did  not  breathe 
with  spiritual  and  moral  purpose.  Never  has 
Christian  art  reached  the  pure  aestheticism  of 
the  classics.  And  in  its  more  earnest  moods, 
in  its  reformations,  in  its  puritanisms,  it  has 
always  stood  ready  to  sacrifice  the  choicest 
works  of  artistic  beauty  for  the  restoration  or 
preservation  of  the  simple  majesty  of  right 
eousness,  the  purity  of  truth,  or  the  glory  of 

v-*0d.  INFLUENCE,  200,  201. 

If  Greece  must  be 

A  wreck,  yet  shall  its  fragments  reassemble, 
And  build  themselves  again  impregnably 

In  a  diviner  clime, 

To  Amphionic  music,  on  some  Cape  sublime, 
Which  frowns  above  the  idle  foam  of  Time. 

SHELLEY. 


APRIL    18.  109 

UNDER  one  fatherhood  the  whole  world 
becomes  sacred.  The  old  distinctions 
of  useful  and  useless  knowledge  will  not  hold. 
The  responsibility  of  each  man  for  the  work 
ing  of  his  intellect  must  be  acknowledged. 
The  sin  of  mental  carelessness  or  wilfulness 
must  take  its  place  among  the  sins  against 
which  men  struggle  and  for  which  they  re 
pent.  The  application  of  moral  standards  to 
history,  to  art,  and  to  pure  letters  must  be 
learned  and  taught.  The  isolation  of  the  artis 
tic  impulse  from  all  moral  judgments  and  pur 
poses  must  be  restrained  and  remedied.  The 
whole  thought  of  art  must  be  enlarged  and 
mellowed  till  it  develops  a  relation  to  the  spir 
itual  and  moral  natures  as  well  as  to  the 
senses  of  mankind.  It  will  lose,  perhaps,  the 
purity  and  simplicity  which  has  belonged  to 
the  idea  of  art  in  classic  and  unchristian  times, 
but  it  will  become  more  and  more  a  part  of  the 
general  culture  of  human  life.  That  is  the 
change  which  has  come  between  the  Venus  of 
Milo  and  the  Moses  of  Michael  Angelo ;  be 
tween  the  Iliad  and  Paradise  Lost ;  between 
the  Idyls  of  Theocritus  and  the  best  modern 
novel.  Mere  simplicity  of  method  and  effect 
has  given  place  to  harmony  of  method  and 
effect,  littleness  to  largeness,  fastidiousness 
to  sympathy,  and  the  Christian  world  has 
really  learned  more  and  more  to  believe  what 
the  Christian  poet  sang,  that 

He  who  feels  contempt 
For  any  living  thing,  hath  faculties 
That  he  hath  never  used  :  and  Thought  with  him 
Is  in  its  infancy. 

INFLUENCE,  267,  268. 


no  APRIL    19. 

Paul  said,  I  would  to  God  that  not  only  thoit, 
but  also  all  that  hear  me  this  day,  were  both  almost 
and  altogether  such  as  I  ant,  except  these  bonds. 

ACTS  xxvi.  29. 

T^HIS  must  always  be  the  first  joy  of  any 
really  good  life,  its  first  joy  and  its  first 
anxiety  at  once,  —  the  desire  that  others 
should  enter  into  it.  Indeed  here  is  the  test 
of  a  man's  life.  Can  you  say,  "  I  wish  you 
were  like  me  "  ?  Can  you  take  your  pur 
poses  and  standards  of  living,  and  quietly, 
deliberately  wish  for  all  those  who  are  dearest 
to  you  that  they  should  be  their  purposes  and 
standards  too  ?  If  you  are  a  true  Christian 
you  can.  If  you  are  trying  to  serve  Christ, 
however  imperfect  be  your  service,  still  you 
can  say  to  your  child,  your  friend,  "I  wish 
that  you  were  with  me  where  I  am,  on  this 
good  road  of  serving  Christ,  though  far  be 
yond  me  in  it."  .  .  .  It  is  not  good  for  a  man 
to  be  living  any  life  which  he  would  not  desire 
to  see  made  perfect  and  universal  through  the 
world.  Paul  says,  "Be  what  I  am;"  but 
Dives  cries  out  of  the  fire  where  he  lies, 
"  Oh,  send  and  warn  my  seven  brethren  lest 
they  come  where  I  am  !  "  .  .  .  Oh,  test  your 
lives  thus  !  Do  not  consent  to  be  anything 
which  you  would  not  ask  the  soul  that  is 
dearest  to  you  to  be.  Be  nothing  which  you 
would  not  wish  all  the  world  to  be ! 

i.  304,  305- 


APRIL   20.  in 


F^EATH  did  not  close  Christ's  being,  but  it 
*-'  was  only  an  experience  which  that  being 
underwent.  That  spiritual  existence  which 
had  been  going  on  forever,  on  which  the  short 
existences  of  men  had  been  strung  into  con 
sistency,  now  came  and  submitted  itself  to 
that  which  men  had  always  been  submitting 
to.  And  lo !  instead  of  being  what  men  had 
feared  it  was,  what  men  had  hardly  dared  to 
hope  that  it  was  not,  the  putting  out  of  life,  it 
was  seen  to  be  only  the  changing  of  the  cir 
cumstances  of  life  without  any  real  power 
over  the  real  principle  of  life ;  any  more 
power  than  the  cloud  has  over  the  sun  that 
it  obscures.  .  .  .  That  was  the  wonder  of 
Christ's  death.  i.  2I4. 

I  lift  mine  eyes  to  see  :  earth  vanisheth. 

1  lift  up  wistful  eyes  and  bow  my  knee  : 
Trembling,  bowed  down,  and  face  to  face  with  Death, 

I  lift  mine  eyes  to  see. 

Lo,  what  I  see  is  Death  that  shadows  me : 
Yet,  while  I,  seeing,  draw  a  shuddering  breath, 
Death  like  a  mist  grows  rare  perceptibly. 

Beyond  the  darkness,  light,  beyond  the  scathe 
Healing,  beyond  the  Cross,  a  palm-branch  tree, 

Beyond  Death  Life,  on  evidence  of  faith  : 
1  lift  mine  eyes  to  see. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


ii2  APRIL    21. 

WHAT  shall  we  make  of  some  man  rich  in 
attainments  and  in  generous  desires, 
well  educated,  well  behaved,  who  has  trained 
himself  to  be  a  light  and  help  to  other  men, 
and  who,  now  that  his  training  is  complete, 
stands  in  the  midst  of  his  fellow-men  com 
pletely  dark  and  helpless  ?  .  .  .  These  men 
are  unlighted  candles;  they  are  the  spirit  of 
man,  elaborated,  cultivated,  finished  to  its  very 
finest,  but  lacking  the  last  touch  of  God.  As 
dark  as  a  row  of  silver  lamps,  all  chased  and 
wrought  with  wondrous  skill,  all  filled  with 
rarest  oil,  but  all  untouched  with  fire,  —  so 
dark  in  this  world  is  a  long  row  of  cultivated 
men,  set  up  along  the  corridors  of  some  age  of 
history,  around  the  halls  of  some  wise  univer 
sity,  or  in  the  pulpits  of  some  stately  church, 
to  whom  there  has  come  no  fire  of  devotion, 
who  stand  in  awe  and  reverence  before  no 
wisdom  greater  than  their  own.  n.  Q,  I0. 

The  world's  philosophers  and  they  that  taste  the  tlesh 

fail  in  Thy  philosophy. 
There  is  many  a  vanity  ; 
There  men  find  death. 

Wide,  wide  apart  the  savour  of  Creator  and  created, 

As  of  eternity  and  time, 

A  candle  and  the  uncreated  beam. 

O  blaze  that  shines  forever, 

High  above  all  the  fires  of  the  earth, 

Lighten  in  flashes  from  above, 

Finding  a  way  into  the  secret  chambers  of  my  heart. 

Make  pure, 

Make  glad, 

Make  clear,  make  quick  my  spirit  and  its  powers. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 


APRIL    22.  113 

TO  him  (who  believes  in  immortality)  death 
is  a  jar,  a  break,  a  deep  mysterious 
change,  but  not  the  end  of  life.  .  ,  .  See  how 
free  it  makes  him.  How  it  breaks  his  tyran 
nies  !  He  can  undertake  works  of  self-culture, 
or  the  development  of  truth,  far,  far  too  vast 
for  the  earthly  life  of  any  Methuselah  to  finish, 
and  yet  smile  calmly  and  work  on  when  men 
tell  him  that  he  will  die  before  his  work  is 
done.  Die !  Shall  not  the  sculptor  sleep  a 
hundred  times  before  the  statue  he  begins  to 
day  is  finished,  and  wake  a  hundred  times 
more  ready  for  his  work,  bringing  with  a  hun 
dred  new  mornings  to  his  work  the  strength 
and  the  visions  that  have  come  to  him  in  his 
slumber  ?  i.  22I. 

That  low  man  seeks  a  little  thing  to  do, 

Sees  it  and  does  it : 
This  high  man,  with  a  great  thing  to  pursue, 

Dies  ere  he  knows  it. 
That  low  man  goes  on  adding  one  to  one, 

His  hundred's  soon  hit : 
This  high  man,  aiming  at  a  million, 

Misses  an  unit. 
That,  has  the  world  here — should  he  need  the  next, 

Let  the  world  mind  him  ! 
This,  throws  himself  on  God,  and  unperplext, 

Seeking,  shall  find  Him. 

ROBERT  BROWNING. 


ii4  APRIL   23. 

/  will  bring  the  third  part  through  the  fire,  and 
will  refine  them  as  silver  is  refined,  and  will  try 
them  as  gold  is  tried ;  they  s)iall  call  on  My  Name, 
and  I  will  hear  them  :  I  will  sa\t  It  is  My  people  : 
and  they  shall  say,  The  Lord  is  my  God.  —  ZECH. 
xiii.  9. 

T  T  E  has  had  little  experience  of  God  who  has 
not  often  felt  how  sometimes,  with  a 
question  still  unanswered,  a  deep  doubt  in 
the  soul  unsolved,  the  Father  will  fold  about 
His  doubting  child  a  sense  of  Himself  so  deep, 
so  true,  so  self-witnessing,  that  the  child  is 
content  to  carry  his  unanswered  question  be 
cause  of  the  unanswerable  assurance  of  His 
Father  which  he  has  received.  i  I0. 

We  are  led  to  believe  a  lie 

When  we  see  with  not  through  the  eye, 

Which  was  born  in  a  night  to  perish  in  a  night 

When  the  soul  slept  in  beams  of  light. 

God  appears  and  God  is  light 

To  those  poor  souls  who  dwell  in  night : 

But  doth  a  human  form  display 

To  those  who  dwell  in  realms  of  day. 

WILLIAM  BLAKE. 


APRIL   24.  115 

Great  is  our  Lord,  and  of  great  power :  His 
understanding  is  infinite.  —  Ps.  cxlvii.  5. 

When  Thy  word  goeth  forth,  it  giveth  light  and 
understanding.  —  Ps.  cxix.  2. 

THERE  are  some  men  whose  minds  are 
wholly  sceptical  of  Christian  truth,  who 
yet  allow  themselves  a  sort  of  religion  on  the 
weaker  skle.  They  let  their  emotions  be  re 
ligious,  while  they  keep  their  minds  in  the 
hard  clear  air  of  disbelief ;  the  heart  may  wor 
ship,  while  the  brain  denies.  I  will  not  stop 
to  ask  the  meaning  of  this  last  strange  condi 
tion,  interesting  as  the  study  might  be  made.  I 
only  want  you  all  to  feel  how  thoroughly  Chris 
tianity  is  bound  to  reject  indignantly  this  whole 
treatment  of  itself.  Just  think  how  the  great 
masters  of  religion  would  receive  it !  Think 
of  David  and  his  cry  —  "Thy  testimonies  are 
wonderful.  1  have  more  understanding  than 
my  teachers,  for  Thy  testimonies  are  my 
study."  Think  of  Paul  —  "  O  the  depth  of 
the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge 
of  God."  Think  of  Augustine,  Luther,  Cal 
vin,  Milton,  Edwards,  and  a  hundred  more,  the 
men  whose  minds  have  found  their  loftiest 
inspiration  in  religion,  how  would  they  have 
received  this  quiet  and  contemptuous  relega 
tion  of  the  most  stupendous  subjects  of  human 
thought  to  the  region  of  silly  sentiment  ? 
They  were  men  who  loved  the  Lord  their 
God  with  all  their  minds.  ni.  38,  39. 


ii6  APRIL   25. 


T  WOULD  present  true  sainthood  to  you  as 
the  strong  chain  of  God's  presence  in 
humanity  running  down  through  all  history, 
and  making  of  it  a  unity,  giving  it  a  large  and 
massive  strength  able  to  bear  great  things  and 
to  do  great  things  too.  This  unity  which  the 
line  of  sainthood  gives  to  history  is  the  great 
point  that  shows  its  strength.  i.  I22. 


Thy  saints,  O  Lord,  who  now  rejoice  with  Thee,  high 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  sky, 

Waited  the  coming  of  Thy  glory  all  their  lives,  trust 
fully,  very  patiently. 

That  they  believed  in,  1  believe  in  too  ; 

That  they  hoped  for,  I  hope  too  ; 

Whither  they  came, 

Thither  I  trust  that  through  thy  grace  I  shall  come  too. 

Till  then  I  walk  in  faith,  strengthened  by  the  pattern 
set  by  them. 


Rejoice,  ye  humble, 
And  exult,  ye  poor ; 
God's  kingdom  yours, 
If  ye  but  walk  in  truth. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 


APRIL    26.  117 

\  \  TE  have  full  tolerance  for  the  Buddhist  and 
^"  the  Mohammedan  ;  less  for  the  Quaker 
and  the  Congregationalist ;  least  of  all  for  the 
man  of  our  own  Church,  but  of  another 
"school  of  thought"  from  ours. 


So  far  from  earnest  personal  conviction  and 
generous  tolerance  being  incompatible  with  one 
another,  the  two  are  necessary  each  to  each. 
"  It  is  the  natural  feeling  of  all  of  us,"  said 
Frederick  Maurice  in  one  of  those  utterances 
of  his  which  at  first  sound  like  paradoxes,  and 
by  and  by  seem  to  be  axioms,  —  "  it  is  the 
natural  feeling  of  all  of  us  that  charity  is 
founded  upon  the  uncertainty  of  truth.  I  be 
lieve  it  is  founded  on  the  certainty  of  truth." 

TOLERANCE,  27,  9. 

To  veer,  how  vain  !    On,  onward  strain, 
Brave  barks  !     In  light,  in  darkness  too, 

Through  winds  and  tides  one  compass  guides  — 
To  that,  and  your  own  selves,  be  true. 

But  O  blithe  breeze  !  and  O  great  seas, 
Though  ne'er,  that  earliest  parting  past, 

On  your  wide  plain  they  join  again, 
Together  lead  them  home  at  last. 

One  port,  methought,  alike  they  sought, 
One  purpose  hold  where'er  they  fare,  — 

O  bounding  breeze,  O  rushing  seas  ! 
At  last,  at  last,  unite  them  there. 

ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH. 


ii8  APRIL   27. 

If  we  be  dead  with  Him,  we  shall  also  live  with 
Him  :  if  we  suffer,  we  shall  alse  reign  with  Him. 

II.  TIM.  ii.   n,   12. 

CHRIST  was  humiliated  into  our  condition 
that  we  might  be  exalted  unto  His. 
Christ  was  crucified  with  man  that  man  might 
rejoice  in  being  crucified  with  Christ.  Both 
the  depth  to  which  He  went  to  seek  man  and 
the  height  up  to  which  He  would  carry  man, 
were  set  forth  in  the  cross.  Alas  for  him  who, 
.  .  .  looking  at  the  crucifixion,  does  not  see 
both  of  these,  does  not  learn  at  once  how  low 
his  Saviour  went  to  find  him,  and  how  high  he 
may  go  if  he  will  make  his  Saviour's  life  his 
own !  ,.  J95. 

O  mine  enemy, 
Rejoice  not  over  me  ! 

Jesus  waiteth  to  be  gracious : 

I  will  yet  arise, 
Mounting  free  and  far 
Past  sun  and  star, 

To  a  house  prepared  and  spaciou? 
In  the  skies. 

Lord,  for  Thine  own  sake 
Kindle  my  heart  and  break  ; 

Make  mine  anguish  efficacious 

Wedded  to  Thine  own  : 
Be  not  Thy  dear  pain, 
Thy  love  in  vain, 

Thou  who  waitest  to  be  gracious 
On  Thy  Throne. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI 


APRIL    28  119 

TT  seems  to  me  a  wonderful  thing  that  the 
1  supremely  rich  human  nature  of  Jesus 
never  for  an  instant  turned  with  self-indul 
gence  in  on  its  own  richness,  or  was  beguiled  by 
that  besetting  danger  of  all  opulent  souls,  the 
wish,  in  the  deepest  sense,  just  to  enjoy  him 
self.  How  fascinating  that  desire  is.  How  it 
keeps  many  and  many  of  the  most  abundant 
natures  in  the  world  from  usefulness.  Just 
to  handle  over  and  over  their  hidden  treasures, 
and  with  a  spiritual  miserliness  to  think  their 
thought  for  the  pure  joy  of  thinking,  and  turn 
emotion  into  the  soft  atmosphere  of  a  life  of 
gardened  selfishness.  Not  one  instant  of  that 
in  Jesus.  All  the  vast  richness  of  His  human 
nature  only  meant  for  Him  more  power  to 
utter  God  to  man.  n.  l6. 

I  built  my  soul  a  lordly  pleasure-house, 

Wherein  at  ease  for  aye  to  dwell. 
I  said,  "  O  Soul,  make  merry  and  carouse, 

Dear  soul,  for  all  is  well." 

Full  oft  the  riddle  of  the  painful  earth 
Flashed  through  her  as  she  sat  alone, 

Yet  not  the  less  held  she  her  solemn  mirth, 
And  intellectual  throne. 

And  so  she  throve  and  prospered  :  so  three  years 
She  prospered  :  on  the  fourth  she  fell, 

Like  Herod,  when  the  shout  was  in  his  ears, 
Struck  through  with  pangs  of  hell. 

TENNYSON. 


120  APRIL    29. 

THE    NEW    BIRTH. 

'Tis  a  new  life ;  — thoughts  move  not  as  they  did, 
With  slow  uncertain  steps  across  my  mind  ; 
In  thronging  haste  fast  pressing  on  they  bid 
The  portals  open  to  the  viewless  wind, 
That  comes  not  save  when  in  the  dust  is  laid 
The  crown  of  pride  that  gilds  each  mortal  brow, 
And  from  before  man's  vision  melting  fade 
The  heavens  and  earth  ;  — their  walls  are  falling  now. 
Fast  crowding  on,  each  thought  asks  utterance  strong  ; 
Storm-lifted  waves  swift  rushing  to  the  shore, 
On  from  the  sea  they  send  their  shouts  along, 
Back  through  the  cave-worn  rocks  their  thunders  roar  ; 
And  1,  a  child  of  God,  by  Christ  made  free, 
Start  from  death's  slumbers  to  eternity. 

JONES  VKRY. 

\\  7HEN  a  man,  strong  in  the  conviction  of 
*  *  immortality,  really  counts  himself  a 
stranger  and  a  pilgrim  among  the  multitudes 
who  know  no  home,  no  world  but  this,  then 
he  is  free  among  them  ;  free  from  the  worldly 
tyrannies  that  hind  them  ;  free  from  their 
temptations  to  be  cowardly  and  mean.  The 
wall  of  death,  beyond  which  they  never  look, 
is  to  him  only  a  mountain  that  can  be  crossed, 
from  whose  top  he  shall  see  eternity,  where 
he  belongs.  .  .  .  What  is  there  in  scorn  or 
criticism,  that  dies  the  day  it  is  born,  that  can 
terrify,  however  it  may  pain,  the  man  who  is 
to  live  forever  ?  He  is  free.  He  has  entered 
into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 

I.    222,    223. 


APRIL    30.  121 

We  do  not  present  our  supplications  before  Thee 
for  our  righteousness,  but  for  Thv  great  mercies. 
O  Lord,  hear ;  O  Lord,  forgive  ;  O  Lord,  hearken 
and  do. — DAN.  ix.  18,  19. 

"C  VERY  true  prayer  has  its  background  and 
-*— '  its  foreground.  The  foreground  of  prayer 
is  the  intense,  immediate  desire  for  a  certain 
blessing  which  seems  to  be  absolutely  neces 
sary  for  the  soul  to  have ;  the  background 
of  prayer  is  the  quiet,  earnest  desire  that  the 
will  of  God,  whatever  it  may  be,  should  be 
done.  What  a  picture  is  the  perfect  prayer 
of  Jesus  in  Gethsemane !  In  front  burns 
the  strong  desire  to  escape  death  and  to  live  ; 
but,  behind,  there  stands,  calm  and  strong, 
the  craving  of  the  whole  life  for  the  doing  of 
the  will  of  God.  .  .  .  Leave  out  the  fore 
ground  —  let  there  be  no  expression  of  the  wish 
of  him  who  prays  —  and  there  is  left  a  pure 
submission  which  is  almost  fatalism.  Leave 
out  the  background  —  let  there  be  no  accept 
ance  of  the  will  of  God  —  and  the  prayer  is 
only  an  expression  of  self-will,  a  petulant 
claiming  of  the  uncorrected  choice  of  him  who 
prays.  Only  when  the  two,  foreground  and 
background,  are  there  together, — the  special 
desire  resting  on  the  universal  submission,  the 
universal  submission  opening  into  the  special 
desire,  —  only  then  is  the  picture  perfect  and 
the  prayer  complete  i  v.  120,  J2i. 


122  MAY    i. 


HEN  the  sun  rose  this  morning  it  found 
this  great  sleeping  world  and  woke 
it.  It  bade  it  be  itself.  It  quickened  every 
slow  and  sluggish  faculty.  It  called  to  the 
dull  streams,  and  said,  "Be  quick;"  to  the 
dull  birds  and  bade  them  sing  ;  to  the  dull 
fields  and  bade  them  grow  ;  to  the  dull  men 
and  bade  them  talk  and  think  and  work.  It 
flashed  electric  invitation  to  the  whole  mass 
of  sleeping  power  which  really  was  the  world, 
and  summoned  it  to  action.  It  did  not  make 
the  world.  It  did  not  sweep  a  dead  world  off 
and  set  a  live  world  in  its  place.  It  did  not  start 
another  set  of  processes  unlike  those  which 
had  been  sluggishly  moving  in  the  darkness. 
It  poured  strength  into  the  essential  processes 
which  belonged  to  the  very  nature  of  the 
earth  which  it  illuminated.  It  glorified,  in 
tensified,  fulfilled  the  earth.  v.  3,  4. 

Through  wood  and  stream  and  field  and  hill  and  ocean, 
A  quickening  life  from  the  earth  has  burst, 

As  it  has  ever  done,  with  change  and  motion, 
From  the  great  morning  of  the  world  when  first 

God  dawned  on  chaos  ;  in  its  stream  immersed, 
The  lamps  of  heaven  flash  with  a  softer  light ; 

All  baser  things  pant  with  life's  sacred  thirst ; 
Diffuse  themselves  ;  and  spend  in  love's  delight, 
The  beauty  and  the  joy  of  their  renewed  might. 

SHE!  LEV. 


MAY   2. 


1HEAR  men  praying  everywhere  for  more 
faith,  but  when  1  listen  to  them  carefully 
and  get  at  the  real  heart  of  their  prayers,  very 
often  it  is  not  more  faith  at  all  that  they  are 
wanting,  but  a  change  from  faith  to  sight. 
.  .  .  Faith  says  not,  "I  see  that  it  is  good  for 
me,  and  so  God  must  have  sent  it,"  but 
"  God  sent  it,  and  so  it  must  be  good  for  me." 
Faith  walking  in  the  dark  with  God  only  prays 
Him  to  clasp  its  hand  more  closely,  does  not 
even  ask  Him  for  the  lifting  of  the  darkness 
so  that  the  man  may  find  the  way  himself. 

V.  35'.  352- 

Oh  that  the  soul  might  be  at  rest ; 

Might  yield  her  quest, 
With  the  sole  thought  of  God  possessed  ! 

That  she  might  close  her  wearied  eyes 

And  blindfold-wise 
Walk  on  as  under  shining  skies ; 

As  seeing  Him  who  is  unseen  ; 

And  wait  serene 
Though  twofold  night  should  intervene  ! 

O  touch  of  God,  O  miracle 

That  none  may  tell ! 
Her  eyes  are  closed,  and  all  Is  well. 

Though  twofold  night  doth  round  her  press 

She  knows  no  less 
He  will  not  leave  her  comfortless. 

The  desolate  Cry  on  Calvary's  height, 

Its  mid-day  night, 
Her  pledges  are  of  coming  light. 

HARRIET  MCEWEN  KIMBALL. 


124  MAY    3. 

When  He  ascended  up  on  high,  He  led  captivity 
captive,  and  gave  gifts  unto  men.  —  EPH.  iv.  8. 

O  sing  praises,  sing  praises  unto  our  God.     Alleluia. 
O  sing  praises,  sing  praises  unto  our  King.     Alleluia. 

CHRIST  was  not  primarily  the  Deed-Doer 
^-^  or  the  Word-Sayer.  He  was  the  Life- 
Giver.  He  made  men  live.  Wherever  He 
went  He  brought  vitality.  Both  in  the  days 
of  His  Incarnation  and  in  the  long  years  of  His 
power  which  have  followed  since  He  vanished 
from  men's  sight,  His  work  has  been  to  create 
the  conditions  in  which  all  sorts  of  men  should 

IW6.  HARVARD  MONTHLY. 

Thrice  for  us  the  Word  Incarnate  high  on  holy  hills 

was  set, 

Once  on  Tabor,  once  on  Calvary,  and  again  on  Olivet ; 
Once  to  shine  and  once  to  suffer,  and  once  more  as 

King  of  kings, 
With  a  merry  noise  ascending  borne  by  Cherubs  on 

their  wings, 
Till  the  glad  Angelic  voices  hail  the  wardens  of  the 

Gate, 
"  Lift  ye  up  the  doors,  ye  princes,  for  the  Victor  comes 

in  state." 

And  the  guards  celestial  answer  from  within  to  that 

strange  cry, 
"  Who  is  He  the  mighty  Victor  Who  claims  entrance 

to  the  sky?" 
Back  from   His  triumphant  legions  comes    reply  in 

joyous  swell, 
"  It  is  He,  the  King  of  Glory,  Who  hath  vanquished 

death  and  hell : 
Lord  of  Hosts  and  strong  in  battle,  Who  upon   this 

holy  tide, 
Leads  captivity  in  fetters,  and  hath  trampled  Satan's 

pride."  R.  F.  LITTLEDALE. 


MAY    4.  125 

The  light  of  the  body  is  the  eye  ;  if,  therefore, 
thine  eye  be  single,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of 
light. —  MATT.  vi.  22. 

T  LOOK  at  Jesus  on  the  cross.  I  see  Him 
there  convicting  sin  by  the  sight  of  its 
terrific  consequence.  1  see  Him  also  drawing 
men's  souls  up,  away  from  the  earth  and 
from  themselves,  up  to  God,  by  that  amaz 
ing  sign  of  how  God  loved  them.  And  when 
1  turn  from  looking  at  the  Sufferer  and  look 
into  the  faces  of  those  men  and  women  to 
whom  His  suffering  has  brought  its  power, 
I  see  how,  in  the  struggle  against  sin  under 
the  power  of  the  love  of  God,  to  which  the 
cross  has  summoned  them,  they  are  know 
ing  God ;  how,  in  St.  Paul's  great  words, 
"  the  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father 
of  Glory,  is  giving  unto  them  the  spirit  of  wis 
dom  and  revelation  in  the  knowledge  of  Him, 
the  eyes  of  their  understanding  being  enlight 
ened."  ,,.89,90. 

O  Light  of  Souls, 

Let  us  not  walk  in  darkness. 

By  the  Love  whereby  Thou  didst  cause  the  blind  to  see  : 
Enlighten  our  minds  with  the  Spirit  of  truth. 

BOOK  OF  LITANIES.    NEALE. 


126  MAY    5. 


December  days  were  brief  and  chill, 

The  winds  of  March  were  wild  and  drear, 
And  nearing  and  receding  still, 

Spring  never  would,  we  thought,  be  here. 
The  leaves  that  burst,  the  suns  that  shine, 

Had,  not  the  less,  their  certain  date  :  — 
And  thou,  O  human  heart  of  mine, 

Be  still,  refrain  thyself  and  wait. 

ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH. 


TT  will  be  good  for  us  to  see  how  widely 
*•  prevalent  the  principle  is  which  comes  to 
its  consummation  in  the  giving  of  Himself  by 
Christ  to  men.  Everywhere  faith,  or  the 
capacity  of  receiving,  has  a  power  to  claim 
and  command  the  thing  which  it  needs.  Nature 
would  furnish  us  many  an  exhibition  of  the 
principle.  You  plant  a  healthy  seed  into  the 
ground.  The  seed's  health  consists  simply  in 
this,  that  it  has  the  power  of  true  relations  to 
the  soil  you  plant  it  in.  And  how  these 
spring-days  bear  us  witness  that  the  soil 
acknowledges  this  power  :  no  sooner  does  it 
feel  the  seed  than  it  replies ;  it  unlocks  all  its 
treasures  of  force ;  the  little  hungry  black  ker 
nel  is  its  master.  "O  seed,  great  is  thy 
faith  !  "  the  ground  seems  to  say  ;  "  be  it  unto 
thee  even  as  thou  wilt ;  "  and  so  the  miracle 
of  growth  begins.  m.  lC3. 


MAY   6.  127 


Little  Lamb,  who  lost  thee?  — 

I,  myself,  none  other.  — 
Little  Lamb,  who  found  thee  ?  — 

Jesus,  Shepherd,  Brother. 
Ah,  Lord,  what  I  cost  Thee  ! 

Canst  Thou  still  desire?  — 
Still  mine  arms  surround  Thee, 

Still  1  lift  Thee  higher, 

Draw  Thee  nigher. 


CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


Father,  I  will  that  they  also,  whom  thou  hast 
given  me,  be  with  me  where  I  am, 

JOHN  xvii.   24. 

T  F  certainly  would  make  it  harder  for  us  to  do 
wrong  this  coming  week,  easier  to  do  what 
is  right,  harder  to  be  selfish,  easier  to  be 
Christ-like,  if  this  week  we  could  constantly 
hear  Christ  praying  for  us  that  we  might  be 
with  Him  where  He  is.  That  prayer  would 
draw  us  to  Him,  into  His  life,  into  His  charac 
ter,  and  make  this  week  a  foretaste  of  that 
eternity  whose  promised  glory  is  that  there  we 
are  to  be  v<  forever  with  the  Lord."  i.  I. 


128  MAY   7. 


He  giveth  to  all  life,  and  breath,  and  all  things. 

ACTS  xvii.  25. 

WHEN  the  spring  comes,  the  oak-tree  with 
its  thousands  upon  thousands  of  leaves 
blossoms  all  over.  The  great  heart  of  the 
oak-tree  remembers  every  remotest  tip  of 
every  farthest  branch,  and  sends  to  each  the 
message  and  the  power  of  new  life.  And  yet 
we  do  not  think  of  the  heart  of  the  oak-tree  as 
if  it  were  burdened  with  such  multitudinous 
remembrance.  It  is  simply  the  thrill  of  the 
common  life  translated  into  these  million  forms. 
.  .  .  Somewhat  in  that  way  it  seems  to  me 
that  we  may  think  of  God's  remembrance  of 
His  million  children.  .  .  .  That  patient  suf 
ferer,  that  toilsome  worker,  are  far-off  leaves 
on  the  great  tree  of  His  life  ;  far-off,  and  yet 
as  near  to  the  beating  of  His  heart  as  any  leaf 
on  all  the  tree.  He  remembers  them  as  the 
heart  remembers  the  finger-tips  to  which  it 
sends  the  blood.  .  .  .  If  any  doubt  about  Him, 
issuing  from  them,  stops  up  the  channel  so 
that  He  cannot  get  to  them,  He  waits  behind 
the  hindrance,  behind  the  doubt,  and  tries  to 
get  it  away,  and  feels  the  withering  of  the 
unbelieving,  unfed  leaf  as  if  a  true  part  of 
Himself  were  dying.  And  when  the  obstacle 
gives  way,  and  the  doubt  is  broken  and  the 
path  is  once  more  open,  it  is  almost  with  a 
shout  which  we  can  hear  that  the  life-blood 
leaps  to  its  work  again.  \\\,  172,  I73,  I74. 


MAY   8.  129 

The  graves  were  opened ;  and  many  bodies  of 
the  saints  which  slept,  arose,  and  came  out  of  the 
graves  after  His  resurrection,  and  went  into  the 
holy  city,  and  appeared  unto  many. 

MATT,  xxvii.  52,  53. 

IF  the  city  of  our  heart  is  holy  with  the  pres 
ence  of  a  living  Christ,  then  the  dear  dead 
will  come  to  us  and  we  shall  know  they  are 
not  dead  but  living,  and  bless  Him  who  has 
been  their  Redeemer,  and  rejoice  in  the  work 
that  they  are  doing  for  Him  in  His  perfect 
world,  and  press  on  joyously  towards  our  own 
redemption,  not  fearing  even  the  grave,  since 
by  its  side  stands  He  whom  we  know  and 
love,  who  has  the  keys  of  death  and  hell. 

i-  227. 

Dear  dead  !   they  have  become 

Like  guardian  angels  to  us  ; 

And  distant  heaven  like  home, 

Through  them  begins  to  woo  us  ; 
Love  that  was  earthly  wings 

Its  flight  to  holier  places  ; 

The  dead  are  sacred  things 

That  multiply  our  graces. 

They  whom  we  loved  on  earth 

Attract  us  now  to  heaven  ; 
Who  shared  our  grief  and  mirth 

Back  to  us  now  are  given. 
They  move  with  noiseless  foot 

Gravely  and  sweetly  round  us, 
And  their  soft  touch  hath  cut 

Full  many  a  chain  that  bound  us. 

F.  W.  FABER. 


130  MAY  9. 

Curse  ye  Meroz,  saith  the  angel  of  the  Lord, 
Curse  ye  bitterly  the  inhabitants  thereof ;  because 
they  came  not  to  tlie  help  of  the  Lord,  to  tlie  help  of 
the  Lord  against  the  mighty.  —  JUDGES  v.  23. 

THE  curse  of  Meroz  is  the  curse  of  useless- 
ness  ;  and  these  are  the  sources  out  of 
which  it  comes  —  cowardice  and  false  humility 
and  indolence.  They  are  the  stones  piled  upon 
the  sepulchres  of  vigor  and  energy  and  work 
for  God,  whose  crushing  weight  cannot  be 
computed.  Who  shall  roll  us  away  those 
stones  ?  Nothing  can  do  it  but  the  power  of 
Christ.  The  manhood  that  is  touched  by  Him 
rises  into  life.  ...  To  be  working  with  God, 
however  humbly  ;  to  have  part  of  that  service 
which  suns  and  stars,  which  angels  and  arch 
angels,  which  strong  and  patient  and  holy  men 
and  women  in  all  times  have  done  ;  to  be,  in 
some  small  corner  of  the  field,  stout  and  brave 
and  at  last  triumphant  in  our  fight  with  lust 
and  cruelty  and  falsehood,  with  want  or  woe 
or  ignorance,  with  unbelief  and  scorn,  with 
any  of  the  enemies  of  God  .  .  .  what  a 
change  it  is  when  a  poor,  selfish,  cowardly, 
fastidious,  idle  human  creature  comes  to  this ! 
Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  to  the  help  of  the 
Lord,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the 
mighty.  There  is  no  curse  for  him.  No 
wounds  that  he  can  receive  while  he  is  fighting 
on  that  side  can  harm  him.  To  fight  there  is 
itself  to  conquer,  even  though  the  victory 
comes  through  pain  and  death,  as  it  came  to 
Him  under  whom  we  fight,  the  Captain  of  our 
Salvation,  Jesus  Christ.  n.  303, 304 


MAY    10.  131 


''"THERE  is  a  wonderful  power  in  sympathy 
*  to  open  and  display  the  hidden  richness 
of  a  man's  own  seemingly  narrow  life.  .  .  . 
The  holiest  soul,  pitying  the  brother-soul 
which  has  fallen  into  vilest  vice,  gains,  while 
it  keeps  its  own  purity  unsoiled,  something  of 
the  sight  of  that  other  side  of  God,  the  side 
where  justice  and  forgiveness  blend  in  the  opal 
mystery  of  grace,  which  it  would  seem  as  if 
only  the  soul  that  looked  up  out  of  the  depths 
of  guilt  could  see.  n.  I20,  I2I. 


Not  wrath,  dear  Lord,  Thy  mercy  seals- 

Our  own  unrighteous  hands 
Hold  back  Thy  shining  chariot-wheels, 

And  rob  the  wistful  lands. 

For  none  shall  walk  in  perfect  white 

Till  every  soul  be  clean  ; 
So  close  for  sorrow  and  delight 

These  human  spirits  lean. 

But  thou  go  forth  and  do  thy  deed, 

In  forest  and  in  town, 
Nor  sigh  for  ease,  while  pain  and  need 

Are  plucking  at  thy  gown. 

And  thus,  when  bitter  turneth  sweet, 

And  every  heart  is  blest, 
Perchance  to  thee  God's  hand  shall  mete 

His  unimagined  rest. 

KATHERINE  LEE  BATES 


132  MAY    11. 

When  He  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  come,  He  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth  .  .  .  He  shall  glorify  Me: 
for  He  shall  receive  of  mine,  and  shall  show  it 
unto  you.  —  JOHN  xvi.  13,  14. 


absorption  of  every  struggle  between 
the  good  and  the  evil  that  is  going  on  in 
the  world  into  the  one  great  struggle  of  the  life 
and  death  of  Jesus  Christ  .  .  .  follows  neces 
sarily  from  any  such  full  idea  as  we  Christians 
hold  of  what  Jesus  Christ  is  and  of  what  brought 
Him  to  this  world.  If  He  be  really  the  Son  of 
God,  bringing  in  an  utterly  new  way  the  power 
of  God  to  bear  on  human  life  ;  if  He  be  the 
natural  creator-king  of  humanity,  come  for  the 
salvation  of  humanity  ;  then  it  would  seem  to 
follow  that  the  work  of  salvation  must  be  His 
and  His  alone  ;  and  if  we  see  the  process  of 
salvation,  the  struggle  of  the  good  against  the 
evil,  going  on  all  over  the  world,  we  shall  be 
ready  still  to  feel  that  it  is  all  under  His  aus 
pices  and  guidance.  .  .  . 

Once  accept  what  is  the  central  truth  of 
operative  Christianity,  the  power  of  an  ever- 
present  unseen  Spirit,  always  manifesting 
Christ  and  making  Him  influential,  and  then 
it  is  not  hard  to  see  that,  men  being  the  same, 
open  to  the  same  influence  everywhere,  they 
may  be  and  they  are  turned  to  the  one  same 
goodness  by  the  power  of  the  one  same  spirit 
of  Christ.  ,.  40,  42. 


MAY    12.  133 


THE  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit!  —  an  ever 
lasting  spiritual  presence  among  men. 
What  but  that  is  the  thing  we  want  ?  That 
is  what  the  old  oracles  were  dreaming  of,  what 
the  modern  spiritualists  to-night  are  fumbling 
after.  The  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  by  which 
every  man  who  is  in  doubt  may  know  what  is 
right,  every  man  whose  soul  is  sick  may  be 
made  spiritually  whole,  every  weak  man  may 
be  made  a  strong  man,  —  that  is  God's  one 
sufficient  answer  to  the  endless  appeal  of  man's 
spiritual  life  ;  that  is  God's  one  great  response 
to  the  unconscious  need  of  spiritual  guidance, 
which  He  hears  crying  out  of  the  deep  heart 
of  every  man.  n.  106,  I07. 


Wilt  Thou  not  visit  me? 
The  plant  beside  me  feels  Thy  gentle  dew, 

And  every  blade  of  grass  I  see 
From  Thy  deep  earth  its  quickening  moisture  drew. 

Come,  for  1  need  Thy  love, 
More  than  the  flower  the  dew  or  grass  the  rain  ; 

Come,  gently  as  Thy  holy  dove  ; 
And  let  me  in  Thy  sight  rejoice  to  live  again. 

Yes,  Thou  wilt  visit  me  : 
Nor  plant  nor  tree  Thine  eye  delights  so  well, 

As,  when  from  sin  set  free, 
My  spirit  loves  with  Thine  in  peace  to  dwell. 

JONES  VERY. 


134  13 


'"THAT  is  a  noble  time,  a  bewildering  and 
1  exalting  time  in  any  of  our-  lives,  when 
into  everything  that  we  are  doing  enters  the 
Spirit  of  God,  and  thenceforth  moving  ever 
up  toward  the  God  to  whom  it  belongs,  that 
Spirit,  dwelling  in  our  life,  carries  our  life  up 
with  it ;  not  separating  our  life  from  the  earth, 
but  making  every  part  of  it,  while  it  still  keeps 
its  hold  on  earth,  soar  up  and  have  to  do  with 
heaven  ;  so  completing  life  in  its  height,  by 
making  it  divine.  n.  12J. 

O  God  the  Holy  Ghost  Who  art  Light  unto  Thine 
elect, 

Evermore  enlighten  us. 
Thou  Who  art  Fire  of  Love 

Evermore  enkindle  us. 
Thou  who  art  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life, 

Evermore  live  in  us. 
Thou  Who  art  Holiness, 

Evermore  sanctify  us. 
Thou  Who  bestowest  Sevenfold  Grace, 

Evermore  replenish  us. 
As  the  Wind  is  Thy  symbol, 

So  forward  our  goings. 
As  the  Dove, 

So  launch  us  heavenwards. 
As  Water, 

So  purify  our  spirits. 
As  a  Cloud, 

So  abate  our  temptations. 
As  Dew, 

So  revive  our  languor. 
As  Fire, 

So  purge  out  our  dross. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


MAY    14.  135 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me  ; 

Because  the  Lord  hath  anointed  me  to  preach 
good  tidings  unto  the  meek ; 

He  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted, 

To  proclaim    liberty    to    the    captives,    and  the 
opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound. 

ISA.  Ixi.   i. 

DOTH  in  belief  and  in  duty,  this  is  the  work 
*-'  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  to  make  belief  pro 
found  by  showing  us  the  hearts  of  the  things 
that  we  believe  in  ;  and  to  make  duty  delight 
ful  by  setting  us  to  doing  it  for  Christ.  O,  in 
this  world  of  shallow  believers  and  weary, 
dreary  workers,  how  we  need  that  Holy  Spirit! 
Remember,  we  may  go  our  way,  ignoring  all 
the  time  the  very  forces  that  we  need  to  help 
us  do  our  work.  The  forces  still  may  help  us. 
The  Holy  Spirit  may  help  us,  will  surely  help 
us,  just  as  far  as  He  can,  even  if  we  do  not 
know  His  name  or  ever  call  upon  Him.  But 
there  is  so  much  more  that  He  might  do  for  us 
if  we  would  only  open  our  hearts  and  ask 
Him  to  come  into  them.  n.  230. 

Let  Thy  mercy,  O  Lord,  be  upon  us,  and  the  bright 
ness  of  Thy  Spirit  illumine  our  inward  souls  ;  that  He 
may  kindle  our  cold   hearts  and   light  up  our  dark 
minds,  Who  abideth  evermore  with  Thee  in  glory. 
ANCIENT  COLLECTS.    BRIGHT. 


136  MAY    15. 


/  will  pour  out  my  Spirit  upon  all  flesh ;  and 
your  sons  and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy,  your 
old  men  shall  dream  dreams,  your  young  men 
shall  see  visions  ;  and  also  upon  the  servants  and 
upon  the  handmaids  in  those  days  will  I  pour 
out  my  Spirit,  —  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  under 
standing,  the  spirit  of  counsel  and  might,  the 
spirit  of  knowledge  and  of  the  fear  of  the  Lord. 
JOEL  ii.  28,  29.  ISA.  xi.  2. 

THE  intellectual  life  of  Christendom  tends 
to  democracy.  Less  and  less  will  it  con 
sent  to  be  the  privilege  of  the  selected  few. 
...  It  is  impossible  to  keep  the  bounds  of 
mental  life  shut  against  any  man  when  the 
source  of  all  men's  knowledge  is  in  God,  who 
is  the  Father  of  us  all,  and  when  the  faculty 
of  knowledge  is  closely  connected  with  the 
faculty  of  moral  obedience,  which  is  the  right 
and  duty  of  mankind.  Instantly  this  began 
when  Christianity  was  once  a  living  fact. 
Peter  stepped  out  of  the  chamber  of  the  Pen 
tecost  and  spoke  to  the  great  multitude  in 
words  which  assumed  in  them  the  power  of 
understanding,  of  judging,  of  deciding  ques 
tions  which  up  to  that  time  had  been  the 
sacred  possession  of  the  scribes  and  doctors. 
There  was  nothing  like  that  speech  before  that 
day.  The  germs  of  the  modern  sermon,  the 
modern  lecture,  and  the  modern  school  were  in 
it.  Thenceforth  men's  intellects  might  differ, 
but  the  intellectual  chance  was  open  to  every 
man.  To  the  dullest  child  belonged  the  right 
to  learn  all  that  he  could  learn,  all  that  was  in 
him  to  learn,  of  his  Father.  INFLUENCE,  269, 270. 


MAY    16.  137 

,  my  dear  friends,  do  not  let  your  religion 
satisfy  itself  with  anything  less  than 
God.  Insist  on  having  your  soul  get  at  Him 
and  hear  His  voice.  Never,  because  of  the 
mystery,  the  awe,  perhaps  the  perplexity  and 
doubt  which  come  with  the  great  experiences, 
let  yourself  take  refuge  in  the  superficial  things 
of  faith.  It  is  better  to  be  lost  on  the  ocean 
than  to  be  tied  to  the  shore.  It  is  better  to  be 
overwhelmed  with  the  greatness  of  hearing  the 
awful  voice  of  God  than  to  become  satisfied 
with  the  piping  of  mechanical  ceremonies  or 
the  lullabies  of  traditional  creeds.  Therefore 
seek  great  experiences  of  the  soul,  and  never 
turn  your  back  on  them  when  God  sends 
them,  as  He  surely  will.  v.  7s,  79. 

I  am  borne  out  to  Thee  upon  the  wave, 
And  the  land  lessens  ;  cry  nor  speech  I  hear, 

Nought  but  the  leaping  waters  and  the  brave 
Pure  winds  commingling.    O  the  joy,  the  fear ! 

Alone  with  Thee ;  sky's  rim  and  ocean's  rim 

Touch,  overhead  the  clear  immensity 
Is  merely  God  ;  no  eyes  of  seraphim 

Gaze  in  ...  O  God,  Thou  also  art  the  sea ! 

EDWARD  DOWDEN 


138  MAY    17. 


T  ET  the  life  be  filled  with  the  spirit  of  the 
springtime.  Let  the  voice  in  its  heart 
always  keep  saying  to  it,  "  You  are  to  go  on 
filling  yourself  with  vitality  and  joy,  day  after 
day,  month  after  month,  and  then  cometh  the 
end,  then  cometh  the  end  ;  "  and  then  it  is  not 
a  cessation  of  life,  but  fuller  life  which  the 
heart  expects.  The  end  which  comes  to 
the  promise  of  springtime  shall  be  the  luxuri 
ance  of  summer  !  v.  364. 

Under  gentle  types,  my  Spring 
Masks  the  might  of  Nature's  king, 
An  energy  that  searches  thorough 
From  Chaos  to  the  dawning  morrow  ; 
Into  all  our  human  plight, 
The  soul's  pilgrimage  and  flight ; 
In  city  or  in  solitude, 
Step  by  step,  lifts  bad  to  good, 
Without  halting,  without  rest, 
Lifting  Better  up  to  Best ; 
Planting  seeds  of  knowledge  pure, 
Through  earth  to  ripen,  through  heaven  endure. 

EMERSON. 


MAY    1 8.  139 


Death  !  since  thy  darksome  mist 
Encircled  the  all-glorious  head  of  Christ 
Thou  now  dost  shine 

A  halo  all  divine. 

ANNA  E  HAMILTON. 

T^HE  crucifixion  of  Jesus  has  been  illumi 
nated  by  the  resurrection,  the  ascension, 
and  the  Pentecost.  .  .  .  Behind  its  shame 
and  pain  it  has  opened  a  heart  of  love  and 
glory,  and  St.  Paul,  summing  up  his  life  in  its 
best  privileges  and  holiest  purposes,  says, 
"  I  am  crucified  with  Christ."  ...  As  Christ, 
by  his  self-sacrifice,  entered  into  the  company 
of  man,  so  there  is  a  self-surrender  by  which 
man  enters  into  the  company  of  Christ.  He 
came  down  to  us,  and  tasted  on  our  cross  the 
misery  of  sin.  We  may  go  up  to  His  cross, 
and  taste,  with  Him,  the  glory  and  peace  of 
perfect  obedience  and  communion  with  God. 

i.  203. 

O  Love,  Who  once  in  time  wast  slain, 

Pierced  through  and  through  with  bitter  woe  : 

O  Love,  Who  wrestling  thus  didst  gain 
That  we  eternal  joy  might  know 

O  Love,  1  give  myself  to  Thee, 
Thine  ever,  only  Thine  to  be. 

J.    SCHEFFLER.     Tr.   by  C.  WlNKWORTH. 


140  MAY    19. 


REVELATION  is  not  the  unveiling  of  God, 
but  a  changing  of  the  veil  that  covers 
Him  ;  not  the  dissipation  of  mystery,  but  the 
transformation  of  the  mystery  of  darkness 
into  the  mystery  of  light.  To  the  Pagan,  God 
is  mysterious  because  He  is  hidden  in  clouds, 
mysterious  like  the  storm.  To  the  Christian, 
God  is  mysterious  because  He  is  radiant  with 
infinite  truth,  mysterious  like  the  sun.  n.  3II. 


My  sight,  becoming  purified, 
Was  entering  more  and  more  into  the  ray 
Of  the  High  Light  which  of  itself  is  true. 

0  grace  abundant,  by  which  I  presumed 
To  fix  my  sight  upon  the  Light  Eternal, 
So  that  the  seeing  1  consumed  therein  ! 

1  saw  that  in  its  depth  far  down  is  lying 

Bound  up  with  love  together  in  one  volume, 
What  through  the  universe  in  leaves  is  scattered 
Substance,  and  accident,  and  their  operations, 
All  interfused  together  in  such  wise 
That  what  1  speak  of  is  one  simple  light. 

O  how  all  speech  is  feeble  and  falls  short 
Of  my  conceit,  and  this  to  what  I  saw 
Is  such,  'tis  not  enough  to  call  it  little! 

O  Light  Eterne,  sole  in  thyself  that  dwellest, 
Sole  knowest  thyself,  and,  known  unto  thyself 
And  knowing,  lovest  and  smilest  on  thyself! 

DANTE 


MAY   20.  141 

T  AM  sure  that  the  divine  nature  is  three  per- 
1  sons,  but  one  God  ;  but  how  much  more 
than  that  I  cannot  know.  That  deep  law 
which  runs  through  all  life,  by  which  the 
higher  any  nature  is,  the  more  manifold  and 
simple  at  once,  the  more  full  of  complexity 
and  unity  at  once,  it  grows,  is  easily  accepted 
as  applicable  to  the  highest  of  all  natures,  — 
God.  In  the  manifoldness  of  His  being  these 
three  personal  existences,  Creator,  Redeemer, 
Sanctifier,  easily  make  themselves  known  to 
the  human  life.  I  tell  the  story  of  them,  and 
that  is  my  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  But  let 
me  not  say  that  that  is  all.  To  other  worlds 
of  other  needs,  and  so  of  other  understandings 
(for  our  needs  are  always  the  avenues  for  our 
intelligence),  other  sides  of  the  personal  force 
of  the  divine  life  must  have  issued.  It  is  not 
for  us  to  catalogue  and  inventory  Deity  ;  only 
in  humble  gratitude  and  reverence  to  bear  our 
witness  of  the  manifestation  of  God  to  us  for 
our  salvation.  And  so  our  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  our  account  of  what  we  know  of 
God.  ,.  230. 

The    holy   Church    throughout    all    the    world    doth 

acknowledge  Thee  ; 
The  Father  :  of  an  infinite  Majesty  ; 
Thine  adorable,  true  and  only  Son  ; 
Also  the  Holy  Ghost :  the  Comforter. 


142  MAY   21. 


Who  coverest  Thyself  with  light  as  with  a  gar 
ment. —  Ps.  civ.  2. 

NOT  as  the  answer  to  a  riddle,  which  leaves 
all  things  clear,  but  as  the  deeper  sight 
of  God,  prolific  with  a  thousand  novel  ques 
tions  which  were  never  known  before,  clothed 
in  a  wonder  which  only  in  that  larger  light  dis 
played  itself,  offering  new  worlds  for  faith  and 
reverence  to  wander  in,  —  so  must  the  New 
Testament  revelation,  the  truth  of  Father,  Son, 
and  Spirit,  one  perfect  God,  offer  itself  to  man. 

ii.  3.4. 

If  it  be  so,  as  we  believe  it  is,  that  in  the 
constitution  of  humanity  we  have  the  fairest 
written  analogue  and  picture  of  the  Divine 
existence,  then  shall  we  not  say  that  the 
human  Christ  gave  us,  in  the  value  which  He 
set  on  human  relationships,  in  His  social 
thought  of  man,  an  insight  into  the  essential- 
ness  and  value  of  that  social  thought  of  God 
which  we  call  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ? 
May  it  not  be  that  only  by  multiplicity  and 
interior  self-relationship  can  Divinity  have  the 
completest  self-consciousness  and  energy  ? 
Surely,  the  reverent  and  thoughtful  eye  must 
see  some  such  meaning  when  Jesus  Himself 
makes  the  eternal  companionship  of  the  life  of 
Deity  the  pattern  and  picture  of  the  best 
society  of  the  souls  of  earth,  and  breathes  out 
to  His  Father  these  deep  and  wondrous  words, 
"As  thou  Father  art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee,  that 
they  all  may  be  one  in  Us/'  INH.UKNCE,  s5. 


MAY   22.  143 


E  divinity  of  the  Father  needs  assertion 
first  of  all.  Let  men  once  feel  it,  and 
then  nature  and  their  own  hearts  will  come  in 
with  their  sweet  and  solemn  confirmations  of 
it.  But  nature  and  the  human  heart  do  not 
teach  it  of  themselves.  The  truest  teaching  of 
it  must  come  from  souls  that  are  always  going 
in  and  out  before  the  divine  Fatherhood  them 
selves.  By  the  sight  of  such  souls  others  must 
come  to  seek  the  satisfaction  that  comes  only 
from  a  divine  end  of  life,  —  must  come  to  crave 
access  to  the  Father.  So  we  believe  and  so 
we  tempt  other  men  to  believe  in  God  the 
Father.  i.  2j6. 


All  the  earth  doth  worship  Thee  :  the  Father  ever 
lasting. 

We  praise  Thee,  we  bless  Thee,  we  worship  Thee, 
we  glorify  Thee,  we  give  thanks  to  Thee  for  Thy  great 
glory,  O  Lord  God,  heavenly  King,  God  the  Father 
Almighty. 


144  MAY   23. 


JV/1  Y  friend  says  God  sends  Christ  into  the 
world  and  therefore  Christ  is  not  God. 
I  cannot  see  it  so.  It  seems  to  me  just  other 
wise.  God  sends  Christ  just  because  Christ 
is  God.  He  sends  Himself.  His  sending  is  a 
coming.  ...  He  [our  Master]  is  the  Son  of 
God.  Think  of  it.  Does  not  "Son"  mean 
just  this  which  the  church's  faith,  with  the 
best  words  that  it  could  find,  has  labored  to 
express,  "Two  persons  and  one  substance." 
That  is  the  Father  and  the  Child.  Separate 
personality  but  one  nature.  Unfty  and  dis 
tinctness  both,  but  the  unity  as  true  a  fact  as 
the  distinctness.  Nay,  the  unity  the  fact 
which  made  the  essence  of  His  mission,  the 
fact  which  made  Him  the  true,  fit,  only  perfect 
messenger  of  God  and  Saviour  of  the  world. 

i.  239. 

Thou  art  the  King  of  Glory :  O  Christ.  Thou  art 
the  everlasting  Son  of  the  Father. 

O  Lord,  the  only-begotten  Son,  Jesus  Christ ;  O 
Lord  God,  Lamb  of  God,  Son  of  the  Father,  that 
takest  away  the  sins  of  the  world,  have  mercy  upon  us. 


MAY   24.  145 


DECEMBER,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  God,  and 
f\  God  is  love.  And  no  man  ever  asks 
God  to  come  into  his  heart  and  holds  his  heart 
open  to  God,  without  God's  entering.  Chil 
dren,  pray  the  dear  God,  the  blessed  Holy 
Spirit,  to  come  and  live  in  your  heart  and  show 
you  Jesus,  and  make  you  love  to  do  what  is 
right  for  His  sake.  Old  men,  aspire  to  taste 
already  here  what  is  to  be  the  life  and  joy  of 
your  eternity.  Men  and  women  in  the  thick 
of  life,  do  not  go  helpless  when  there  is  such 
help  at  hand  ;  do  not  go  on  by  yourselves, 
struggling  for  truth  and  toiling  at  your  work, 
when  the  Holy  Spirit  is  waiting  to  show  you 
Christ,  and  to  give  you  in  Him  the  profound 
ness  of  faith  and  the  delightfulness  of  duty. 

n.  230, 231. 

Come,  Holy  Ghost,  our  souls  inspire, 

And  lighten  with  celestial  fire. 

Thou  the  anointing  Spirit  art, 

Who  dost  Thy  seven-fold  gifts  impart. 

Thy  blessed  unction  from  above, 

Is  comfort,  life,  and  fire  of  love. 

Enable  with  perpetual  light 

The  dulness  of  our  blinded  sight. 

Anoint  and  cheer  our  spiled  face 

With  the  abundance  of  Thy  grace. 

Keep  far  our  foes,  give  peace  at  home ; 

Where  Thou  art  guide,  no  ill  can  come. 

Teach  us  to  know  the  Father,  Son, 

And  Thee,  of  Both,  to  be  but  One  ; 

That,  through  the  ages  all  along, 

This  may  be  our  endless  song : 
Praise  to  Thy  eternal  merit, 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit. 


146  MAY   25. 


Through  Him  u>e  both  hare  access  by  one  Spirit 
unto  the  Father.  —  EPH.  ii.  18. 

TF  it  be  not  to  the  Father,  the  Son's  redemp 
tion  is  in  vain.  If  it  be  not  through  the 
Son,  the  Father  waits  and  the  Spirit  moves  for 
naught.  If  it  be  not  by  the  Spirit,  the  Father's 
heart  stands  open  and  the  method  of  grace  is 
perfect,  but  the  unmoved  soul  stands  inactive 
and  unsaved.  The  Scripture  revelation  comes 
to  tell  us  that  end,  method,  and  power,  all  are 
perfect,  and  each  must  thus  be  worthy  of  the 
rest.  The  three  are  one.  Each  is  eternal, 
and  yet  as  the  old  creed  cries,  "  There  are  not 
three  Eternals,  but  one  Eternal."  Each  is 
God,  and  yet  "there  are  not  three  Gods,  but 
one  God,"  -  not  three  salvations,  but  one 
salvation,  with  its  equal  end  and  method  and 
power,  and  so  by  the  Trinity  in  Unity  the  soul 
is  saved.  i.  233. 

Glory  be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the 
Holy  Ghost; 

As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  no\v,  and  ever  shall 
be:  world  without  end.  Amen. 


MAY   26.  147 


'"THE  partialness  which  we  see  in  man,  and 
1  which  lets  us  easily  divide  our  fellow- 
men  into  classes  and  label  them  the  men  of 
intellect  or  the  men  of  action,  passes  away  as 
we  mount  to  any  thought  of  God  which  is  at 
all  worthy  of  Him.  What  God  knows  is  one 
and  the  same  with  the  love  with  which  He 
loves  and  the  resolve  with  which  He  wills. 
You  cannot  draw  a  fence  through  the  great 
ocean  of  infinity.  Mythology  dreams  of  its 
many  gods  with  many  functions.  The  mo 
ment  that  one  God  stands  forth  above  all  gods, 
the  many  things  which  the  partial  deities  do 
lose  themselves  in  the  one  perfect  thing  which 
the  one  only  Deity  is.  And  all  wisdom  unites 
with  all  power  and  all  love  no  less  in  the  guid 
ing  of  a  little  child  along  the  slippery  path 
which  leads  to  manhood,  than  in  the  vast  con 
duct  of  the  destinies  of  the  colossal  man  who 
lives  through  all  the  generations  of  the  race. 

INFLUENCE,  221. 


I  saw  the  Power  ;  I  see  the  Love,  once  weak, 
Resume  the  Power;  and  in  this  word,  "  I  see," 
Lo,  there  is  recognized  the  Spirit  of  both 
That,  moving  o'er  the  spirit  of  man,  unblinds 
His  eye,  and  bids  him  look. 

BROWNING. 


148  MAY   27. 

/  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth  : 

And  in  Jesus  Christ  his  only  Son  our  Lord : 

I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 
OOMETIMES,  when  vitality  grows  feeble, 
O  when  disappointments  and,  shall  I  not  say 
still  more,  success  makes  the  whole  business 
of  existence  seem  tawdry,  or  not  worth  the 
pains  it  costs  —  when  the  morning  brings  no 
stimulus  and  the  evening  no  satisfaction  — 
...  in  all  that  ebbing  and  flagging  of  the 
tide  of  life,  do  you  know  what  it  is  to  find 
strength  and  healthiness,  again,  in  believing 
in  God,  in  believing  in  the  Trinity?  Does 
that  sound  strange  ?  What  !  shall  belief  in 
a  doctrine  quicken  the  feeble  pulse  and  fill 
again  the  empty  channels  of  a  worn  and 
weary  life  ?  But,  unless  it  can  do  this,  what 
is  the  use  of  your  belief  ?  Nay,  shall  we  not 
have  such  faith  in  our  great  doctrine  that  we 
shall  confidently  say  that  if  it  does  not  do  that 
for  a  man,  the  man  who  says  that  he  believes 
it  does  not  truly  believe  it.  David  said 
"My  heart  and  my  flesh  fail,  but  God  is  the 
strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  for 
ever."  And  how  much  more  we  know  of  God 
than  David  knew  ?  All  that  the  life  of  Jesus 
told,  all  that  the  Christian  centuries  have  told 
—  the  eternally  Living  One,  the  great  I  Am, 
who  is  both  Creator  and  Father  ;  the  Son,  in 
whom  was  life,  which  was  the  light  of  the 
world :  the  Spirit,  who  is  the  Lord  and  Giver 
of  life  —  not  many  gods,  but  one  God  —  not 
many  partial  springs,  but  one  great  sea  of  life 
heard  behind  all.  OXFORD  REVIEW. 


MAY   28.  149 


NOTHING  can  really  haunt  us  except  what 
we  have  the  beginning  of,  the  native 
capacity  for,  however  hindered,  in  ourselves. 
The  highest  angel  does  not  tempt  us  because 
he  is  of  another  race  from  us  ;  but  God  is  our 
continual  incitement  because  we  are  His 
children.  So  the  ideal  life  is  in  our  blood,  and 
never  will  be  still.  We  feel  the  thing  we 
ought  to  be  beating  beneath  the  thing  we  are. 
Every  time  we  see  a  man  who  has  attained  our 
human  idea  a  little  more  fully  than  we  have, 
it  wakens  our  languid  blood  and  fills  us  with 
new  longings.  When  we  see  Christ,  it  is  as 
if  a  new  live  plant  out  of  the  southern  soil 
were  brought  suddenly  in  among  its  poor 
stunted,  transplanted  brethren,  and,  blossom 
ing  in  their  sight,  interpreted  to  each  of  them 
the  restlessness  and  discontent  which  was  in 
each  of  their  poor  hearts.  .  .  .  And  when  we 
die  and  go  to  God,  it  is  as  if  at  last  the  poor 
shrub  were  plucked  up  out  of  its  exile  and 
taken  back  and  set  where  it  belonged,  in  the 
rich  soil,  under  the  warm  sun,  where  the 
patience  which  it  had  learned  in  its  long  wait 
ing  should  make  all  the  deeper  and  richer  the 
flower  into  which  its  experience  was  set  free  to 
find  its  utterance.  i.  35,  36. 


See,  love,  afar,  the  heavenly  man 
The  Will  of  God  would  make, 

The  thing  I  must  be  when  I  can 
Love  now,  for  faith's  dear  sake. 

GEORGE  MACDONALD 


ISO  MAY   29. 

Hail,  holy  Light,  offspring  of  Heaven  first-born  ! 

before  the  sun, 

Before  the  Heavens  thou  wert,  and  at  the  voice 
Of  God,  as  with  a  mantle  did'st  invest 
The  rising  world  of  waters  dark  and  deep, 
Won  from  the  void  and  formless  infinite. 

MILTON. 

WITH  the  mystery  of  darkness  we  are 
familiar.  Of  the  mystery  of  light  we 
have  not  thought,  perhaps,  so  much.  .  .  .  Sup 
posing  that  .  .  something  really  rich  and  pro 
found,  were  brought  out  of  the  darkness  into  n 
sudden  flood  of  sunlight,  would  it  grow  less  or 
more  mysterious  ?  Suppose  it  is  a  jewel,  and 
instead  of  having  to  strain  your  eyes  to  make 
out  the  outline  of  its  shape,  you  can  look  now 
deep  into  its  heart ;  see  depth  opening  beyond 
depth,  until  it  looks  as  if  there  were  no  end  to 
the  chambers  of  splendor  that  are  shut  up  in  that 
little  stone  ;  see  flake  after  flake  of  luminous 
color  floating  up  out  of  the  unseen  fountain 
which  lies  somewhere  in  the  jewel's  heart. 
Is  the  jewel  less  or  more  mysterious  than  it  was 
when  your  sight  had  to  struggle  to  see  whether 
it  was  a  topaz  or  an  emerald?  Suppose  it  is  a 
landscape.  One  hour  all  its  features  are  vague 
and  dim  in  twilight;  hill,  field,  and  stream  in 
almost  indistinguishable  confusion.  Six  hours 
later  the  whole  is  glowing  in  the  noonday  sun, 
the  streams  burning  with  silvery  light,  the 
colors  of  the  fresh  spring  hillsides  striking  far 
away  upon  the  senses,  filling  them  with  de 
light  and  wonder.  Everything  is  thrilling  anc1 
bursting  with  manifest  life.  Has  not  the  mys 
tery  increased  with  the  ascending  sun? 


MAY    30.  151 


T  T  was  to  the  American  nature,  long  kept  by 
God  in  His  own  intentions,  till  His  time 
should  come,  at  last  emerging  into  sight  and 
power,  and  bound  up  and  embodied  in  this  best 
and  most  American  of  all  Americans,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  to  whom  we  and  those  poor  frightened 
slaves  at  last  might  look  up  together  and  love 
to  call  him,  with  one  voice,  our  Father.  .  .  . 

The  American  nature,  the  American  truths, 
of  which  our  President  was  the  anointed  and 
supreme  embodiment,  have  been  embodied  in 
multitudes  of  heroes  who  marched  unknown 
and  fell  unnoticed  in  our  ranks.  For  them, 
just  as  for  him,  character  decreed  a  life  and  a 

death.  SERMON  ON  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Blow,  trumpets,  all  your  exultations  blow  ! 
For  never  shall  their  aureoled  presence  lack  : 
I  see  them  muster  in  a  gleaming  row, 
With  ever  youthful  brows  that  nobler  show  ; 
We  find  in  our  dull  road  their  shining  track  ; 

In  every  nobler  mood 
We  feel  the  orient  of  their  spirit  glow, 
Part  of  our  life's  unalterable  good, 
Of  all  our  saintlier  aspiration  ; 

They  come  transfigured  back, 
Secure  from  change  in  their  high-hearted  ways, 
Beautiful  evermore,  and  with  the  rays 
Of  morn  on  their  white  Shields  of  Expectation. 
JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


152  MAY    31. 

Phillips  Brooks    ordained  Priest,   1860. 

THIS  seems  to  me  to  be  the  ever-increasing 
joy  of  the  minister's  life,  if  one  may  vent 
ure  for  once  to  speak  of  his  own  work.  A 
man  becomes  a  minister  because  God  says, 
"Go  speak  in  the  temple  the  words  of  this 
life."  He  begins  the  service  of  his  fellow-men 
in  pure  obedience  to  God's  command,  but  the 
joy  and  ever-richening  delight  of  the  minister's 
work  is  in  finding  how  deep  this  human  soul 
to  which  his  Lord  has  sent  him  really  is.  The 
nature  to  which  he  ministers,  as  he  meets  its 
exhibitions  here  and  there,  is  always  amazing 
him  with  its  spiritual  capacity,  is  always 
proving  itself  capable  and  worthy  of  so  much 
better  and  higher  ministry  than  he  can  give 
it.  So  the  minister  of  the  Gospel  finds  his 
own  humility  and  the  delightfulness  of  his  work 
ever  increasing  together.  i.  349. 

THE    WORK    OF   PHILLIPS    BROOKS. 

Yet  each  itiill  have  one  anguish — his  o~vn  soul 
Which  perishes  of  cold. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

We  know  this  anguish.     By  the  closed  door 

Of  their  o\vn  lives  men  listen  for  the  slow 

And  fluttering  breath  of  souls  by  doubt  laid  low, 

Which  freeze  in  darkness,  now  they  hope  no  more. 

The  door  of  thy  great  life  stood  wide,  and  o'er 

The  threshold  leaned  thy  eager  soul,  aglow 

With  that  warm  hope  the  apostles  used  to  know. 

With  that  strong  faith  the  prophets  preached  of  yore. 

O  glorious  soul !     How  many  lips  shall  bless 

That  faithfulness,  that  wealth  of  hopefulness 

That  like  God's  sun  persisted  in  its  cheer  ! 

Forged  at  such  heat  thy  swift  word  struck  the  ear 

To  pierce  men's  souls  —  which,  finding  day  still  shine, 

Rose  and  unbarred  their  lives  to  life  divine. 

HANNAH  PARKER  KIMBALL. 


JUNE    i.  153 


'"THE  rich  atmosphere  and  rich  earth  surround 
the  stone  just  as  they  surround  the  rose. 
They  are  as  free  to  one  as  to  the  other.  But 
the  rose  grows  red  and  soft  and  fragrant,  and 
the  stone  lies  cold  and  hard  and  gray.  The 
same  rich  humanity,  the  same  culture,  the 
same  heauty  lies  about  two  men,  as  free  to 
one  as  to  the  other,  and  one  grows  harder  and 
more  brutal  and  more  insensible  day  by  day, 
and  the  other  grows  kindlier,  truer,  and  more 
sensitive.  MSS. 


"  God's  spirit  falls  on  me  as  dewdrops  on  a  rose 
If  1  but  like  a  rose  my  heart  to  Him  unclose." 

"  In  all  eternity  no  tone  can  be  so  sweet 
As  where  man's  heart  with  God  in  unison  doth  beat." 

"  Whatever  thou  lovest,  man,  that  too  become  thou  must. 
God  if  thou  lovest  God  ;  dust  if  thou  lovest  dust." 

"  Immeasurable  is  the  Highest;  who  but  knows  it? 
And  yet  a  human  heart  can  perfectly  enclose  It." 


I54  JUNE    2. 

VERY  healthy  growth  creates  the  condi- 
tions  of  new  growth,  makes  new  growth 
possible.  The  illustrations  are  numberless 
everywhere.  Every  ray  of  sunlight  that  gives 
ripeness  to  an  apple  makes  the  apple  opener 
to  more  sunlight,  which  shall  ripen  it  still  more. 
.  .  .  Every  summer  is  also  a  spring-time'. 
Indeed  we  may  make  this  a  test  of  growth. 
Every  ray  of  sun  which  does  not  open  the 
ground  to  new  sunlight,  is  not  feeding  it  but 
baking  it.  This  is  the  true  test  of  growing 
force.  It  opens  the  beautiful  reactions  between 
itself  and  the  growing  thing,  and  creates  an 
openness  for  yet  more  of  itself.  n.  4,,42. 

The  twig  sprouteth, 

The  moth  outeth, 

The  plant  springeth, 

The  bird  singeth  : 

Tho'  little  we  sing  to-day, 

Yet  are  we  better  than  they  ; 

Tho'  growing  with  scarce  a  showing, 

Yet,  please  God,  we  are  growing. 

The  twig  teacheth, 
The  moth  preacheth, 
The  plant  vaunteth, 
The  bird  chanteth, 
God's  mercy  overflowing 
Merciful  past  man's  knowing. 
Please  God  to  keep  us  growing 
Till  the  awful  day  of  mowing. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI 


JUNE:    3,  155 


Christ  in  you,  the  hope  <>f  glfliy.  —  COL.  i.  27. 

GREAT  is  the  work  that  Christ  does  for  us. 
Greater,  deeper  still,  because  without  it 
all  the  other  would  be  purposeless  and  useless, 
is  the  work  that  Christ  does  in  us.  How 
wonderful  it  is.  The  world  glows  with  the 
assurance  of  redemption.  Heaven  opens,  and 
there  the  saints  and  elders  are  prostrate  before 
the  throne.  The  whole  spiritual  universe 
trembles  with  the  new  spiritual  life  which  has 
come  to  it  out  of  the  marvellous  death.  In  the 
midst  of  it  all  lies  one  soul,  dead  and  incapable 
of  action,  though  intensely  alive  with  desire 
for  a  share  in  all  this  glorious  vitality.  .  .  . 
The  world  about  it  is  strong  with  the  promise 
and  temptation  of  holy  things.  The  soul  itself 
is  weak  with  its  own  unholiness.  Then  comes 
the  better,  perfect,  completing  promise  of  a 
change  of  soul.  The  Christ  who  has  done  all 
this  offers  to  do  one  thing  more,  to  make  the 
dead  soul  alive  and  able  to  enjoy  and  use  it  all. 
He  will  come  into  us,  not  merely  stand  without 
us.  He  will  come  in  and  be  Himself  the  power 
which  lays  hold  of  His  own  invitations.  We 
may  feed  on  Him.  Nay,  let  us  take  His  own 
strong  word  and  say,  "He  that  eateth  Me,  the 
same  shall  live  by  Me."  That  is  the  inner 
life,  Christ  in  the  soul  rising  up  and  laying 
hold  of  the  infinite  possibilities  which  redemp 
tion  has  prepared.  n.  245,  246. 


156  JUNE   4. 

If  any  man  offend  not  in   word,  the  same  is  a 
perfect  man,  and  able  also  to  bridle  the  whole  body. 

JAMKS  iii.  2. 

OH  profoundly  honest.  Never  dare  to  say, 
*-*  ...  through  ardent  excitement  or  con 
formity  to  what  you  know  you  are  expected  to 
say,  one  word  which  at  the  moment  when  you 
say  it,  you  do  not  believe.  It  would  cut  down 
the  range  of  what  you  say,  perhaps,  but  it 
would  endow  every  word  that  was  left  with 

the   force    Of  ten.  PREACHING.  ,07. 

But  why  are  we  so  glad  to  talk  and  take  our  turns  to 

prattle, 
When  so  rarely  we  get  back  to  the  stronghold  of  our 

silence 

With  an  unwounded  conscience? 
Our  talk  is  often  empty,  often  vain. 
This  comfort  from  without 
Is  no  small  enemy  to  that  from  God  which  speaks  to 

us  within. 

So  we  must  watch  and  pray, 
For  fear  our  days  go  idly  by. 
If  you  may  talk  and  it  be  best  for  you, 
Talk  and  build  up  the  soul ; 
But  evil  habit,  and  carelessness  about  our  prattle, 
Make  us  neglect  the  doorway  of  our  mouth. 
Yet  holy  communing  about  the  things  of  God  leads  us 

no  little  way  along  the  spiritual  road, 
And  most  of  all  when  man  meets  man 
Like  to  himself  in  heart  and  mind,  like  to  himself--  in 

God. 

THOMAS  A  Kt.vuMS. 


JUNE    5.  157 


/\  A  Y  dear  friends,  never  let  the  seeming  worth- 
*  *  *  lessness  of  sympathy  make  you  keep 
back  that  sympathy  of  which,  when  men  are 
suffering  around  you,  your  heart  is  full.  Go 
and  give  it  without  asking  yourself  whether  it  is 
worth  the  while  to  give  it.  It  is  too  sacred  a 
thing  for  you  to  tell  what  it  is  worth.  God, 
from  whom  it  comes,  sends  it  through  you  to 
His  needy  child.  Do  not  ever  let  any  low  skep 
ticism  make  you  distrust  it,  but  speak  out  what 
God  has  put  it  in  your  heart  to  speak  to  any 
sufferer.  The  sympathy  of  God  for  man  has 
just  this  same  difficulty  about  it,  if  we  try  to 
analyze  it.  We  cannot  say  that  He  has  done 
anything  for  us.  We  cannot  tell  even  of  any 
thought  that  He  has  put  into  our  minds.  Merely 
He  has  been  near  us.  He  has  known  that  we 
were  in  trouble  and  He  has  been  sorry  for  us. 

I.  108,  109. 

For  I,  a  man,  with  men  am  linked, 
And  not  a  brick  with  bricks  ;  no  gain 
That  I  experience  must  remain 
Unshared  ;  but  should  my  best  endeavor 
To  share  it,  fail  —  subsisteth  ever 
God's  care  above,  and  1  exult 
That  God  by  God's  own  ways  occult 
May  —  doth  I  will  believe  —  bring  back 
All  wanderers  to  a  single  track. 

BROWNING. 


158  JUNE  6. 


See  that  thou  make  all  things  according  to  the 
pattern  shewed  to  thee  in  the  mount.  —  HEB.  viii.  5. 

FOR  man  to  accept  the  pattern  of  his  living 
absolutely  from  any  other  being  besides 
God  in  all  the  universe  would  be  for  him  to 
sacrifice  his  self  and  to  lose  his  originality.  But 
for  man  to  find  and  simply  reproduce  the  pict 
ure  of  his  life  which  is  in  God  is  for  him  not 
to  sacrifice  but  to  find  his  self.  For  the  man 
is  in  God.  The  ideal,  the  possible  perfection 
of  everything  that  he  can  do  or  be,  is  there  in 
God  ;  and  to  be  original  for  any  man  is  not  to 
start  aside  with  headlong  recklessness  and  do 
what  neither  brother-man  nor  God  dreamed  of 
our  doing ;  but  it  is  to  do  with  filial  loyalty 
the  act  which,  because  God  is  God,  a  being 
such  as  we  are  ought  to  do  under  the  circum 
stances,  in  the  conditions  in  which  we  stand. 
Because  no  other  being  ever  was  or  ever  will  be 
just  the  same  as  you,  and  because  precisely  the 
same  conditions  never  before  have  been  and 
never  will  be  grouped  about  any  other  mortal 
life  as  are  grouped  around  yours,  therefore  for 
you  to  do  and  be  what  you,  with  your  own 
nature  in  your  own  circumstances,  ought  in  the 
judgment  of  the  perfect  mind  to  do  and  be,  that 
is  originality  for  you.  m  I2,  I3. 


JUNE   7.  159 


TS  not  Christ  the  mountain  up  into  which  the 
believer  goes,  and  in  which  he  finds  the  di 
vine  idea  of  himself  ?  As  a  mountain  seems  to 
he  the  meeting-place  of  earth  and  heaven,  the 
place  where  the  bending  skies  meet  the  aspiring 
planet,  the  place  where  the  sunshine  and  the 
cloud  keep  closest  company  with  the  granite 
and  the  grass  :  so  Christ  is  the  meeting-place 
of  divinity  and  humanity ;  He  is  at  once  the 
condescension  of  divinity  and  the  exaltation  of 
humanity  ;  and  man  wanting  to  know  God's 
idea  of  man,  any  man  wanting  to  know  God's 
idea  of  him,  must  go  up  into  Christ,  and  he  will 
find  it  there.  m.  l6. 


There  littleness  was  not ;  the  least  of  things 

Seemed  infinite  ;  and  there  his  spirit  shaped 

Her  prospects,  nor  did  he  believe,  —  he  saw. 

What  wonder  if  his  being  thus  became 

Sublime  and  comprehensive  !     Low  desires, 

Low  thoughts,  had  there  no  place ;  yet  was  his  heart 

Lowly  ;  for  he  was  meek  in  gratitude, 

Oft  as  he  called  those  ecstasies  to  mind, 

And  whence  they  flowed  ;  and  from  them  he  acquired 

Wisdom,  which  works  through   patience ;    thence  he 

learned 

In  oft  recurring  hours  of  sober  thought 
To  look  on  Nature  with  a  humble  heart, 
Self-questioned  where  it  did  not  understand, 
And  with  a  superstitious  eye  of  love. 

WORDSWORTH. 


160  JUNE   8. 


And  He  laid  His  right  hand  upon  rue,  saying 
unto  me,  Fear  not;  I  am  the  first  and  tlie  last : 
I  am  He  that  live th,  and  was  dead ;  and,  behold  I 
am  alive  for  evermore,  Amen.  —  REV.  i.  17,  18. 

"  T  AM  He  that  liveth,  and  was  dead."  We 
do  not  begin  to  know  how  wonderful  that 
is.  Remember  the  eternally  living,  the  very  life 
of  all  lives.  And  yet  into  that  life  of  lives  death 
has  come,  —  as  an  episode,  an  incident.  I  do 
not  speak  now  of  the  immense  provocation,  the 
immense  love  that  brought  so  strange  a  tiling 
as  the  submission  to  death  on  the  part  of  the 
Ever-living  One.  I  speak  only  of  this,  that 
when  death  came  to  Him  it  was  seen  to  be  not 

the  end  of  life,  but  only  an  event  in  life. 

i.  214. 

"  Thou  knowest  not  now  ;  for  here  \ve  see  but  darkly 

The  outlines  of  His  Grace  ; 
The  rest  is  learned  in  Heaven's  eternal  glory, 
And  face  to  face. 

"  Then  thou  shalt  know  ;  that  passionless  hereafter 

Shall  solve  all  mystery  : 

Dream  not  that  life  can  hold  the  tide  of  wonder 
In  store  for  thee." 


JUNE  9.  161 

'"THE  disciples  began  as  fishermen  who  could 
1  not  do  without  their  nets  and  boats  and 
houses  and  fishing  friends  and  sports  and  gains 
and  gossipings.  Jesus  carried  them  up  till  they 
were  crying,  "  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,  and  it 
surficeth  us."  That  wonderful  change  —  how 
wonderful  it  was  we  forget,  because  the  story 
is  so  familiar  —  He  brought  about  by  showing 
them  His  salvation.  When,  living  with  Him, 
they  saw  the  glory  of  forgiveness  and  regenera 
tion,  saw  the  new  life  that  opened  before  those 
who  really  knew  His  grace,  everything  changed 
to  them.  It  was  not  so  important  how  they 
fared,  what  food  they  ate,  what  they  wore,  how 
many  fish  they  caught.  "  All  these  things  do 
the  nations  of  the  earth  seek  after."  To  them 
the  questions  shifted.  The  tests  of  life  swept 
higher  up.  Were  they  indeed  His  ?  Had  they 
caught  His  spirit  ?  Were  they  living  His  life  ? 
Had  they  part  in  His  eternity  ?  And  so  when 
you  and  I  really  desire  the  salvation  of  Christ, 
He  will  do  for  us  all  that  He  did  for  them.  Our 
tests  of  life,  too,  shall  sweep  up.  1.297,298. 

How  inexhaustibly  the  spirit  grows  ! 
One  object  she  seemed  'erewhile  born  to  reach 
With  her  whole  energies,  and  die  content, 
So  like  a  wall  at  the  world's  end  it  stood, 
With  naught  beyond  to  live  for —  is  it  reached? 
Already  are  new  undreamed  energies 
Out-growing  under,  and  extending  further 
To  a  new  object ;  —  there's  another  world  ! 

B3OWNING. 


162  JUNE    10. 

JESUS  spends  the  night  in  prayer  and  med- 
itation.  Out  of  this  solitude,  out  of  this 
mysterious  communion  with  His  Father,  in 
which  He  has,  as  it  were,  refilled  Himself  with 
the  assurance  that  the  human  is  son  to  the 
Divine,  He  comes  when  morning  breaks,  and 
gathering  His  disciples  around  Him,  He  speaks 
to  them,  and  the  multitude  who  have  thronged 
about  Him,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  .  .  . 

Neander  calls  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  "  the 
Magna  Charta  of  the  kingdom  of  God."  It  is 
a  fine  phrase,  and  in  one  sense  it  is  completely 
true.  But  really  the  idea  of  God  which  fills  the 
great  discourse  is  not  the  idea  of  king,  but  the 
idea  of  father.  .  .  .  What  gives  it  its  great, 
everlasting  value,  is  the  passing  over  of  king 
ship  into  fatherhood  ;  or,  if  you  please  to  put  it 
so,  the  opening  and  deepening  of  kingship  till  it 
reveals  the  fatherhood  which  lies  folded  at  the 

heart  Of  it.  INFLUENCE,  25.  26,  27, 

Thou  Who  wast  Centre  of  all  Heights  on  the  Mount  of 

Beatitudes 
Grant  us  to  sit  with  Thee  in  heavenly  places. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


JUNE    ii.  163 


WHAT  do  you  know  about  the  uses  of  the 
Lord,  of  this  great  work  which  the 
Lord  has  to  do  ;  what  do  you  know  of  it  that 
gives  you  the  right  to  say  that  your  power  is 
little  ?  God  may  have  some  most  critical  use 
to  put  you  to  as  soon  as  you  declare  yourself 
His  servant.  Men  judge  by  the  size  of  things; 
God  judges  by  their  fitness.  .  .  .  Fitness  is 
more  than  size.  You  can  see  something  of 
your  size  ;  but  you  can  see  almost  nothing  of 
your  fitness  until  you  understand  all  the  won 
derful  manifold  work  that  God  has  to  do.  It 
is  a  most  wanton  presumption  and  pride  for 
any  man  to  dare  to  be  sure  that  there  is  not 
some  very  important  and  critical  place  which 
just  he  and  no  one  else  is  made  to  fill.  It  is 
almost  as  presumptuous  to  think  you  can  do 
nothing  as  to  think  you  can  do  everything. 
The  latter  folly  supposes  that  God  exhausted 
Himself  when  He  made  you  ;  but  the  former 
supposes  that  God  made  a  hopeless  blunder 
when  he  made  you,  which  it  is  quite  as  impi 
ous  for  you  to  think.  n.  2g8,  2gg. 

Lord,  teach  me  how  to  do  Thy  will,  i 

And  to  walk  worthily  and  humbly  before  Thee. 
Thou  art  my  wisdom  ;  Thou  dost  really  know  me, 
Thou  knewest  me  before  the  world  was  made,  or  ever 

I  was  born  in  it. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 


1 64  JUNE    12. 

/  saw  flic  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before 
God.  —  REV.  xx.  12. 

TAKE  these  three  ideas,  and  I  think  that  we 
can  see  something  of  what  it  must  have  heen 
for  souls  to  stand,  as  John  the  Evangelist  in  his 
great  vision  saw  them  standing  before  God. 
They  had  gone  up  above  all  the  small  and  tem 
porary  standards,  and  laid  their  lives  close  upon 
the  one  perfect  and  eternal  standard  by  which 
men  must  be  judged.  No  longer  did  it  matter 
to  them  whether  they  were  rich  or  poor,  whether 
men  praised  them,  or  abused  them,  or  pitied 
them.  The  one  question  about  themselves,  into 
which  all  other  questions  gathered  and  were 
lost,  was  whether  they  were  good,  whether  they 
were  obedient  to  God. 

And  then,  along  with  this,  there  had  come  to 
them  a  true  and  cordial  meeting  with  their  breth 
ren.  No  child  of  their  Father  was  too  lofty  or 
too  low  for  them  to  be  truly  his  brethren,  when 
they  stood,  small  and  great,  together  before 
God. 

And  yet,  again,  in  presence  of  the  Infinite, 
they  had  comprehended  their  immortality.  They 
had  seen  how,  within  that  life  to  which  their 
lives  belonged,  there  was  room  for  a  growth 
which  might  go  on  to  all  eternity. 

No  wonder  that  as  St.  John  looked  upon  that 
vision  it  filled  all  his  soul  with  joy.  iv. 


.  70,  71. 


JUNE   13.  165 

P)  EMEMBER  that  there  is  an  atheism  which 
*\  still  repeats  the  creed.  There  is  a  belief 
in  God  which  does  not  bring  Him,  nay,  rather 
say  which  does  not  let  Him  come,  into  close 
contact  with  our  daily  life.  The  very  reverence 
with  which  we  honor  God  may  make  us  shut 
Him  out  from  the  hard  tasks  and  puzzling  prob 
lems  with  which  we  have  to  do.  Many  of 
us  who  call  ourselves  theists  are  like  the  savages 
who,  in  the  desire  to  honor  the  wonderful  sun 
dial  which  had  been  given  them,  built  a  roof 
over  it.  Break  down  the  roof ;  let  God  in  on 
your  life.  H.  l6o. 

The  thought  of  God,  the  thought  of  Thee, 

Who  liest  in  my  heart, 
And  yet  beyond  imagined  space 

Outstretched  and  present  art,  — 

The  thought  of  God  is  like  the  tree 

Beneath  whose  shade  I  lie, 
And  watch  the  fleets  of  snowy  clouds 

Sail  o'er  the  silent  sky. 

'Tis  like  that  soft  invading  light, 

Which  in  all  darkness  shines, 
The  thread  that  through  life's  sombre  \veb 

In  golden  pattern  twines. 

The  wild  flower  on  the  mossy  ground 

Scarce  bends  its  pliant  form, 
When  overhead  the  autumnal  wood 

Is  thundering  like  a  storm. 

So  is  it  with  our  humbled  souls 

Down  in  the  thought  of  God, 
Scarce  conscious  in  their  sober  peace 

Of  the  wild  storms  abroad. 

F.  W.  FABER 


1 66  JUNE    14. 

Kilter  into   thy  closet,  an  if  when   thou  hast  shut 
thy  door,  pra\  to  th\  Father  which  is  in  secret. 

M.vrr.   ii.   6. 

I  need  not  leave  the  jostling  world, 

Or  wait  till  daily  tasks  are  o'er, 
To  fold  my  palms  in  secret  prayer 

Within  the  close-shut  closet  door. 

There  is  a  viewless  cloistered  room 
As  high  as  heaven,  as  fair  as  day, 

Where,  though  my  feet  may  join  the  throng, 
My  soul  can  enter  in  and  pray. 

No  human  step  approaching  breaks 

The  blissful  silence  of  tiie  place  ; 
No  shadow  steals  across  the  light 

That  falls  from  my  Redeemer's  face. 

One  hearkening  even  cannot  know 
When  1  have  crossed  the  threshold  o'er; 

For  He  alone  who  hears  my  prayer 
Has  heard  the  shutting  of  the  door. 

HARRIET  MCEWEN  KI.WBALL. 

TESUS  never  did  a  deed,  He  never  thought  a 
J  thought,  that  He  did  not  carry  it  back  with 
His  soul  before  it  took  its  final  shape  and  get 
His  Father's  judgment  on  it.  He  lifted  His  eyes 
at  any  instant  and  talked  through  the  open  sky, 
and  on  the  winds  came  back  to  Him  the  answer. 
He  talked  with  Pilate  and  with  Peter,  with  Herod 
and  with  John  ;  and  yet  His  talk  with  them  was 
silence ;  it  did  not  begin  to  make  His  life,  to 
be  His  life,  compared  with  that  perpetual  com 
munion  with  His  Father  which  made  the  funda 
mental  consciousness  as  it  made  the  unbroken 
habit  of  His  life.  v.  s,. 


JUNE  15.  167 

When  the  burnt  offering  began,  the  song  of  the 
Lord  began  with  the  trumpets. 

II.  CHRON.  xxix.  27. 

An  offering  of  a  free  heart  will  I  give  Thee,  and 
praise  Thy  name,  O  Lord.  —  Ps.  liv.  6. 

NOT  in  a  gloomy  silence,  as  if  the  people 
were  doing  a  hard  duty  which  they  would 
not  do  if  they  could  help  it,  did  the  smoke  of 
their  offering  ascend  to  God  ;  but  with  a  burst 
of  jubilant  music  and  with  a  song  of  triumphant 
joy,  which  rang  down  through  the  crowded 
courts,  the  host  of  the  Jews  claimed  for  them 
selves  anew  their  place  in  the  obedience  of  God. 
The  act  of  sacrifice  was  done  amid  a  chorus  of 
delight.  „.  22. 

Nothing  more  grateful  can  I  offer  Him, 

Than  wholly  to  give  up  my  heart  to  God,  joining  it 

closely  unto  His. 

Then  all  my  inward  self  shall  leap  for  joy, 
When  my  soul  shall  wholly  be  at  one  with  God. 
Then  shall  He  say  to  me, 
"Wiltthou  be  with  Me? 
1  will  be  with  thee." 
And  I  shall  answer, 

"  O  Lord,  bow  down  and  stay  with  me, 
And  I  shall  love  to  be  with  Thee  ; 
This  is  the  end  of  my  desire, 
A  heart  made  one  with  Thee." 

THOMAS  A  KEMPIS. 


168  JUNE   16. 

No  chastening  for  the  present  seemeth  to  be  jo\- 
ous,  but  grievous :  nevertheless  afterward  it  yieldeth 

the  peaceable  fruit  of  righteousness  unto  them  which 
are  exercised  thereby.  —  HKH.  xii.  1 1 . 

\I7HEN  a  man  conquers  his  adversaries  and 
*  *  his  difficulties,  it  is  not  as  if  he  never  had 
encountered  them.  Their  power,  still  kept,  is 
in  all  his  future  life.  They  are  not  only  events 
in  his  past  history,  they  are  elements  in  all  his 
present  character.  His  victory  is  colored  with 
the  hard  struggle  that  won  it.  His  sea  of  glass 
is  always  mingled  with  fire,  just  as  this  peaceful 
crust  of  the  earth  on  which  we  live,  with  its 
wheat  fields,  and  vineyards,  and  orchards,  and 
flower-beds,  is  full  still  of  the  power  of  the  con 
vulsion  that  wrought  it  into  its  present  shape, 
of  the  floods  and  volcanoes  and  glaciers  which 
have  rent  it,  or  drowned  it,  or  tortured  it.  Just 
as  the  whole  fruitful  earth,  deep  in  its  heart,  is 
still  mingled  with  the  ever-burning  fire  that  is 
working  out  its  chemical  fitness  for  its  work, 
just  so  the  life  that  has  been  overturned  and 
overturned  by  the  strong  hand  of  God,  filled 
with  the  deep  revolutionary  forces  of  suffering, 
purified  by  the  strong  fires  of  temptation,  keeps 
its  long  discipline  forever,  roots  in  that  discipline 
the  deepest  growths  of  the  most  sunny  and  lux 
uriant  spiritual  life  that  it  is  ever  able  to  attain. 

IV.  113. 


JUNE    17.  169 

THE    NEW    COLOSSUS. 

\_The  Barlholdi  Statue  of  Liberty.'} 

Not  like  the  brazen  giant  of  Greek  fame, 

With  conquering  iimbs  astride,  from  land  to  land  ; 

Here  at  our  sea-washed,  sunset  gates  shall  stand 

A  mighty  woman  with  a  torch,  whose  flame 

Is  the  imprisoned  lightning,  and  her  name 

Mother  of  Exiles.     From  her  beacon-hand 

Glows  world-wide  welcome  ;  her  mild  eyes  command 

The  air-bridged  harbor  that  twin  cities  frame. 

"  Keep,  ancient  lands,  your  storied  pomp  !  "  cries  she 

With  silent  lips.     "  Give  me  your  tired,  your  poor, 

Your  huddled  masses  yearning  to  breathe  free, 

The  wretched  refuse  of  your  teeming  shore. 

Send  these,  the  homeless,  tempest-tossed  to  me, 

I  lift  my  lamp  beside  the  golden  door !  " 

EMMA  LAZARUS. 

MY  patriotism  lives  and  flutters  as  a  senti 
ment  unless  I  know  that  the  land  I  love 
is  really  making,  by  its  constant  life,  a  contribu 
tion  to  the  righteousness  and  progress  of  the 
world.  When  I  know  that,  then  1  set  my  pa 
triotic  impulse  free  to  act.  My  land  becomes  to 
me  merely  the  special  spot  where  I  am  placed 
to  labor  for  the  universal  spiritual  benefit  of 
man.  Then  the  old  Psalmist's  words  become 
real  to  me  ;  and  as  I  live  my  life  of  citizen  or 
public  officer,  as  I  take  my  office  or  cast  my 
vote  or  pay  my  tax,  I  say  with  David,  "Be 
cause  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  our  God,  I  will 
seek  to  do  thee  good."  Such  was  the  perpet 
ual,  self-limited  character  of  the  love  of  Jesus 
for  His  native  land.  INFLUENCE,  I33 


170  JUNR    18. 

V/"OU  remember,  perhaps,  in  Tennyson's 
1  "Enoch  Arden  "  how,  when  Enoch  has 
made  his  resolution  and  deliberately  determined 
that  he  will  not  claim  the  home  to  which  he  has 
a  right,  and  has  settled  down  to  his  solitary  life, 
these  lines  describe  his  condition  : 

"  He  was  not  all  unhappy.     His  resolve 
Upbore  him,  and  firm  faith,  and  evermore 
Prayer  from  a  living  source  within  the  will, 
And  beating  up  thro'  all  the  bitter  world, 
Like  fountains  of  sweet  water  in  the  sea, 
Kept  him  a  living  soul." 

What  are  such  words  as  these  but  an  echo  of 
the  strong  words  of  Jesus,  which  declared  that 
if  a  man  lost  his  life  for  the  highest  purposes, 
"for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's,"  he  should  find 
it.  Indeed  there  are  various  half-mystic  words 
of  Christ  which  explain  and  illuminate  this  truth, 
of  which  our  own  experience  bears  witness,  that 
when  a  man  voluntarily  surrenders  that  which 
is  legitimately  his  for  some  sublimer  claim,  he 
does  not  really  lose  it;  its  spiritual  essence, 
its  precious  soul,  remains  with  him,  and  is  still 
his.  .  .  .  Shall  we  not  think  that  Christ  spoke 
all  His  deep  words  out  of  His  own  experience  ? 
He  himself  had  known  what  it  was  to  gain  the 
life  He  lost,  to  have  the  thing  that  He  surren 
dered.  When  He  gave  up  the  home  of  the 
foxes  and  the  birds,  it  was  to  find  a  home  all 
the  more  deeply  in  His  Father's  love. 

in.  238-240. 


JUNE    19.  171 

Finally,  bretJiren,  whatsoever  things  are  true, 
whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are 
just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things 
are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report ;  if 
there  be  any  virtue  and  if  there  be  any  praise,  think 
on  these  things .  —  PHIL.  iv.  8. 

SOME  people  seem  to  be  here  in  the  world 
just  on  their  guard  all  the  while,  always  so 
afraid  of  doing  wrong  that  they  never  do  any 
thing  really  right.  They  do  not  add  to  the 
world's  moral  force  ;  as  the  man,  who,  by  con 
stant  watchfulness  over  his  own  health,  just 
keeps  himself  from  dying,  contributes  nothing 
to  the  world's  vitality.  All  merely  negative 
purity  has  something  of  the  taint  of  the  im 
purity  that  it  resists.  The  effort  not  to  be  friv 
olous  is  frivolous  itself.  The  effort  not  to  be 
selfish  is  very  apt  to  be  only  another  form  of 
selfishness.  i.  Ig3,  Ig4. 

Is  it  then  true  that  none  of  us  can  keep  him 
self  unspotted  from  the  world  unless  his  life  be 
full  of  reverence  for  God  and  trust  in  Christ  and 
tender  pity  for  his  fellow-men  ?  What  is  that 
but  to  say,  that  "  Except  a  man  be  born  again 
he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God  "  ? 
Oh,  what  poor  makeshifts  all  our  laws  and  de 
cencies  and  proprieties  appear  beside  the  live 
power  of  the  new  manhood  of  grace.  Oh,  how 
hard  and  hopeless  seems  the  prudent,  watchful, 
timid  man,  who  is  trying  to  save  himself  by 
constant  self-denials,  beside  the  new  freeman  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  full  of  the  high  ambitions 
and  sure  hopes  of  the  heavenly  life.  i.  I9I. 


i;2  JUNE   20. 

DUT  your,  hand  in  Christ's,  that  as  He  leads 
you  other  men,  who  have  turned  away 
from  Him,  may  look  and  see  you  walking  with 
Him,  learn  to  love  Him  through  your  love.  1 
do  not  believe  any  man  ever  yet  genuinely, 
humbly,  thoroughly  gave  himself  to  Christ  with 
out  some  other  finding  Christ  through  him.  1 
wish  it  might  tempt  some  of  your  souls  to  the 
higher  life.  I  hope  it  may.  At  least  I  am  sure 
that  it  may  add  a  new  sweetness  and  nobleness 
to  the  consecration  which  some  young  heart  is 
making  of  itself  to-day,  if  it  can  hear,  down  the 
new  path  on  which  it  is  entering,  not  merely  the 
great  triumphant  chant  of  personal  salvation, 
"  unto  Him  that  loved  us  and  washed  us  from 
our  sins  be  glory  and  dominion;"  but  also 
the  calmer,  deeper  thanksgiving  for  usefulness, 
"  Blessed  be  the  God  of  comfort,  who  comfort  - 
eth  us  that  we  may  be  able  to  comfort  them  that 
are  in  tribulation."  i.  ,e,  J7. 

If  there  be  some  weaker  one, 

Give  me  strength  to  help  him  on  ; 

If  a  blinder  soul  there  be, 

Let  me  guide  him  nearer  Thee. 

Make  my  mortal  dreams  come  true 

With  the  work  I  fain  would  do  ; 

Clothe  with  life  the  weak  intent, 

Let  me  be  the  thing  I  meant ; 

Let  me  find  in  thy  employ 

Peace  that  dearer  is  than  joy  ; 

Out  of  self  to  love  be  led 

And  to  heaven  acclimated, 

Until  all  things  sweet  and  good 

Seem  my  natural  habitude.  WHITTIER 


JUNE  21.  173 

^THINK  what  the  study  of  nature  might  be- 
*  come,  if,  keeping  every  accurate  and  care 
ful  method  of  investigation  of  the  way  in  which 
the  universe  is  governed  and  arranged,  it  yet 
was  always  hearing,  always  rejoicing  to  hear, 
behind  all  methods  and  governments  and  machin 
eries,  the  sacred  movement  of  the  personal  will 
and  nature  which  is  the  soul  of  all.  Whether 
we  call  such  hearing  science  or  poetry,  it  matters 
not.  If  we  call  it  poetry,  we  are  only  assert 
ing  the  poetic  issue  of  all  science.  If  we  call  it 
science,  we  are  only  declaring  that  poetry  is  not 
fiction  but  the  completest  truth.  The  two  unite 
in  religion,  which,  when  it  has  its  full  chance  to 
do  all  its  work,  shall  bring  poetry  and  science 
together  in  the  presence  of  a  recognized  God, 
whom  the  student  then  shall  not  shrink  from, 
but  delight  to  know,  and  find  in  Him  the  illumi 
nation  and  the  harmony  of  all  his  knowledge. 

V.  79,  80. 

Bat  we,  fraile  wights  !  whose  sight  cannot  sustaine 

The  sun's  bright  beames  when  he  on  us  doth  shyne, 

But  that  their  points  rebutted  back  againe 

Are  duld,  how  can  we  see  with  feeble  eyne 

The  glory  of  that  Majestic  Divine 

In  sight  of  whom  both  Sun  and  Moone  are  dark 

Compared  to  His  least  resplendent  sparke. 

The  meanes,  therefore,  which  unto  us  is  lent 

Him  to  behold,  is  on  his  workes  to  looke 

Which  He  hath  made  in  beauty  excellent 

And  in  the  same  as  in  a  brasen  book 

To  reade  enregistred  in  every  nooke 

His  goodnesse,  which  his  beautie  doth  declare, 

For  all  that's  good  is  beautiful  and  fair. 

SPENSER. 


174  JUNE  22. 


THE  unconscious  needs  of  the  world  are  all 
appeals  and  cries  to  God.  He  does  not 
wait  to  hear  the  voice  of  conscious  want.  The 
mere  vacancy  is  a  begging  after  fulness ;  the 
mere  poverty  is  a  supplication  for  wealth  ;  the 
mere  darkness  cries  for  light.  Think  then  a 
moment  of  God's  infinite  view  of  the  capacities 
of  His  universe,  and  consider  what  a  great  cry 
must  be  forever  going  up  into  His  ears  to  which 
His  soul  longs  and  endeavors  to  respond.  .  .  . 
"  He  first  loved  us  !  "  Our  hope  is  in  the  ear 
which  God  has  for  simple  need  ;  so  that  mere 
emptiness  cries  out  to  Him  for  filling,  mere 
poverty  for  wealth.  n.  95i  96. 


If  there  had  anywhere  appeared  in  space 

Another  place  of  refuge,  where  to  flee, 
Our  hearts  had  taken  refuge  in  that  place, 

And  not  with  Thee. 

For  we  against  creation's  bars  had  beat 

Like  prisoned  eagles,  through  great  worlds  had  sought 
Though  but  a  foot  of  ground  to  plant  our  fer t, 

Where  Thou  wert  not. 

And  only  when  we  found  in  earth  and  air, 

In  heaven  or  hell  that  such  might  nowhere  be  — 
That  we  could  not  flee  from  Thee  anywhere, 

We  fled  to  Thee. 

R.  C.  TKKNCH. 


JUNE  23..  175 

God,  iu/10  at  sundry  times  and  in  diverse  man 
ners  spake  in  time  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the 
prophets,  hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  to  us  by 
His  Son. —  HF.I:.  i.  i,  2. 

NO  one  can  read  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  and 
then  turn  to  what  is  left  us  of  the  life 
of  Socrates,  without  being  struck  and  almost 
startled  with  the  suggested  comparison  between 
the  account  of  Christ's  last  talk  with  His  disci 
ples  before  His  crucifixion,  which  is  given  in  five 
chapters  of  that  Gospel,  and  the  beautiful  story 
of  what  Socrates  said  to  Simmias  and  Cebes 
and  his  other  friends  in  the  prison  at  Athens 
just  before  he  drank  the  hemlock, — the  story 
which  Plato  has  written  for  us  in  the  Phaedo. 
And  nowhere  could  the  essential  difference  as 
well  as  the  likeness  of  the  two  great  teachers 
become  more  apparent.  ...  I  can  almost  dream 
what  Socrates  would  say  to  any  man  who  said 
there  was  no  difference  between  Jesus  and  him. 
But  how  shall  we  state  the  difference  ?  One  is 
divine  and  human  ;  the  other  is  human  only. 
One  is  Redeemer ;  the  other  is  philosopher. 
One  is  inspired,  and  the  other  questions.  One 
reveals,  and  the  other  argues.  These  state 
ments,  doubtless,  are  all  true.  And  in  them  all 
there  is  wrapped  up  this,  which  is  the  truth  of 
all  the  influence  of  Jesus  over  men's  minds, 
that  where  Socrates  brings  an  argument  to  meet 
an  objection,  Jesus  always  brings  a  nature  to 
meet  a  nature,  — a  whole  being  which  the  truth 
has  filled  with  strength,  to  meet  another  whole 
being  which  error  has  filled  with  feebleness. 

INFLUENCE,  235,  245. 


176  JUNE  24. 


[  Ye~\  are  built  upon  the  foundation  of  (Jie  apostles 
and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  Jlimsclf  being  //if  chief 
corner-stone  ;  in  whom  all  the  building  fitly  framed 
together  groweth  up  into  an  holy  temple  in  the  Lord. 

Kl'H.   11.    20,    21. 

'T'HERE  are  the  multitudes  who  go  in  and 
*  out,  who  count  the  church  as  theirs,  who 
gather  from  her  thought,  knowledge,  the  com 
fort  of  good  company,  the  sense  of  safety  ;  and 
then  there  are  others  who  think  they  truly,  as 
the  light  phrase  so  deeply  means,  "belong  to 
the  church."  They  are  given  to  it,  and  no  com 
pulsion  could  separate  them  from  it.  They  are 
part  of  its  structure.  They  are  its  pillars.  Here 
and  hereafter  they  can  never  go  out  of  it.  Life 
would  mean  nothing  to  them  outside  the  church 
of  Christ.  n.  eg.  6g. 

Behold,  O  Lord,  how  thy  faithful  Jerusalem  rejoices 
in  the  triumph  of  the  Cross  and  the  power  of  the 
Saviour ;  grant,  therefore,  that  those  who  love  her 
may  abide  in  her  peace,  and  those  who  depart  from  her 
may  one  day  come  back  to  her  embrace  ;  that  when  all 
sorrows  are  taken  away,  we  may  be  refreshed  with  the 
joys  of  an  eternal  resurrection,  and  be  made  partakers 
of  her  peace,  through  Thy  mercy,  O  our  God,  Who  art 
blessed,  and  dost  live,  and  govern  all  things,  world 

without  end. 

ANCIENT  COLLECTS,  BRIGHT. 


JUNE  25.  177 


'"THERE  is  some  duty  which  God  has  made 
*  ready  for  you  to  do  to-morrow  ;  nay,  to 
day  !  He  has  built  it  like  a  house  for  you  to 
occupy.  You  have  not  to  build  it.  He  has 
built  it,  and  He  will  lead  you  up  to  its  door 
and  set  you  with  your  feet  upon  its  threshold. 
Will  you  go  in  and  occupy  it  ?  Will  you  do 
the  duty  which  He  has  made  ready  ?  Perhaps 
it  is  the  great  comprehensive  duty  of  the  con 
secration  of  yourself  to  Him.  Perhaps  it  is 
some  special  task.  Whatever  it  is,  may  He 
who  anticipated  your  love  by  His  own  in  giv 
ing  you  the  task,  now  help  you  to  fulfil  His 
love  with  yours  by  doing  it.  Amen.  y.  56. 


If  to-day  you  are  not  ready, 

Will  you  be  to-morrow? 

And  to-morrow  is  a  day  you  must  not  count  on  ; 

How  do  you  know  that  you  will  have  the  morrow  for 

your  own  ? 

Lord, 

All  is  Thine 
In  heaven  and  earth. 

I  long  to  give  myself  to  Thee,  a  free-will  offering, 
And  be  forever  Thine. 
Lord,  in  my  simple  heart  I  give  myself  to-day  to  be 

Thy  servant  ever, 
To  listen  unto  Thee,  and  be  a  sacrifice  of  everlasting 

praise. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 


178  JUNE   26. 


When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought 
I  summon  up  remembrance  of  things  past, 
I  sigh  the  lack  of  many  a  thing  I  sought, 
And  with  old  woes  new  wail  my  dear  time's  waste: 
Then  can  1  drown  an  eye,  unused  to  flow, 
For  precious  friends  hid  in  death's  dateless  night, 
And  weep  afresh  love's  long  since  cancell'd  woe, 
And  moan  the  expense  of  many  a  vanish'd  sight: 
Then  can  I  grieve  at  grievances  foregone, 
And  heavily  from  woe  to  woe  tell  o'er 
The  sad  account  of  fore-bemoaned  moan, 
Which  I  new  pay  as  if  not  paid  before. 
But  if  the  while  I  think  on  thee,  dear  friend, 
All  losses  are  restored  and  sorrows  end. 

SHAKESPEARE. 

OURELY  there  is  no  more  beautiful  sight 
to  see  in  all  this  world,  —  full  as  it  is 
of  beautiful  adjustments  and  mutual  minis 
trations, —  than  the  growth  of  two  friends' 
natures  who,  as  they  grow  old  together,  are 
always  fathoming,  with  newer  needs,  deeper 
depths  of  each  other's  life,  and  opening  richer 
veins  of  one  another's  helpfulness.  And  this 
best  culture  of  personal  friendship  is  taken  up 
and  made,  in  its  infinite  completion,  the  gospel 
method  of  the  progressive  saving  of  the  soul 
by  Christ.  n.  54. 


JUNE   27.  179 


How  many  loan's  have  yc  ? — MATT.  xv.  34. 

IT  is  the  completeness  of  the  nature  of  Jesus, 
the  way  in  which  it  is  all  one,  and  works 
and  lives  as  one,  that  makes  Him  often  so  very 
different  from  us.  Our  lives  are  disjointed. 
One  part  of  us  works  at  a  time.  It  is  hard  for 
us  to  be  brave  and  prudent  together  ;  hard  for 
us  to  be  liberal  and  just  at  the  same  time.  .  .  . 
Now  in  this  miracle  of  Jesus  which  I  have 
recalled  to  you  there  is  a  meeting  of  generosity 
and  frugality  which  is  striking  and  suggestive. 
These  two  things  do  meet  indeed  with  us.  We 
try  to  be  generous  and  frugal  at  the  same  time, 
but  the  result  in  us  is  mean.  We  try  to  give 
and  yet  to  save.  We  try  to  satisfy  the  in 
stinct  which  makes  us  want  to  aid  our  breth 
ren,  and  at  the  same  time  not  to  disappoint 
the  instinct  which  makes  us  want  to  save  and 
spare  the  things  we  have.  But  the  result  in 
us  is  mean.  When  Christ  unites  generosity 
and  frugality  the  result  in  Him  is  noble.  We 
feel  His  pity  and  care  for  the  poor  people  a 
great  deal  more  when  we  see  Him  take  the 
wretched  little  stock  of  food  which  they  pos 
sessed  into  His  hands  and  make  that  the  basis 
of  His  bounty,  than  if  with  an  easy  sweep  of 
His  hand  He  had  bid  the  skies  open  and  rain 
manna  and  quails  once  more  upon  the  hungry 
host.  His  generosity  is  emphasized  for  us  by 
its  frugal  methods,  and  His  frugality  is  digni 
fied  by  its  generous  purpose.  n.  128,  129. 


1 8o  JUNE   28. 


A  MAN  comes  up  to  our  life,  and  looking 
round  upon  the  crowd  of  our  fellow-men, 
he  says,  "See,  I  will  strike  the  life  of  this 
brother  of  ours  and  you  shall  hear  how  true 
it  rings."  He  does  strike  it,  and  it  does  seem 
to  them  to  ring  true,  and  they  shout  their  ap 
plause  ;  hut  we  whose  life  is  struck  feel  run 
ning  all  through  us  at  the  stroke  the  sense  of 
hollowness.  Our  soul  sinks  as  we  hear  the 
praises.  They  start  desire  but  they  reveal 
weakness.  No  true  man  is  ever  so  humble 
and  so  afraid  of  himself  as  when  other  men  are 
praising  him  most  loudly.  L  254. 


Or  what  if  Heaven  for  once  its  searching  light 
Lent  to  some  partial  eye,  disclosing  all 

The  rude  bad  thoughts  that  in  our  bosom's  night 
Wander  at  large,  nor  heed  Love's  gentle  thrall? 


Thou  know'st  our  bitterness  —  our  joys  are  Thine; 

No  stranger  Thou  to  all  our  wanderings  wild  : 
Nor  could  we  bear  to  think  how  every  line 

Of  us,  Thy  darkened  likeness  and  defiled, 

Stands  in  full  sunshine  of  Thy  piercing  eye, 
But  that  Thou  call'st  us  Brethren  :  sweet  repose 

Is  in  that  word  !  the  Lord  who  dwells  on  high 
Knows  all,  yet  loves  us  better  than  He  knows. 

JOHN  KEBLE. 


JUNE    2Q.  181 

'"THIS  church  of  all  the  saints  is  a  great  power 
1  in  the  world.  Every  true  servant  of  God 
must  belong  with  this  mighty  service  of  God ; 
must  get  his  strength  through  it,  and  contribute 
his  strength  into  it.  Ever  from  out  the  past, 
from  the  old  saints  who  lived  in  other  times, 
from  Enoch,  David,  Paul,  and  John,  Augustine, 
Jerome,  Luther,  Leighton,  there  comes  down  the 
power  of  God  to  us.  Because  they  were  full  of 
it,  we,  by  association  with  them,  grow  fuller 
of  it  than  we  could  be  by  ourselves.  .  .  .  Our 
faith  mounts  up  with  their  exultant  prayers. 
Our' weak  devotion,  tired  and  drooping,  rests 
against  the  strong  pillars  of  their  certain  trust. 
Their  quick  sight  teaches  our  half-opened  eyes 
the  way  to  look  toward  the  light  that  shall 
unseal  them  wholly.  L  I2J. 

I  think  of  the  saints  I  have  known,  and  lift  up  mine 

eyes 

To  the  far  away  home  of  beautiful  Paradise, 
Where  the  song  of  saints  gives  voice  to  an  undividing 

sea 
On  whose  plain  their  feet  stand  firm  while  they  keep 

their  jubilee. 
As  the  sound  of  waters  their  voice,  as  the  sound  of  thun- 

derings, 
While  they  all  at  once  rejoice,  while  all  sing  and  while 

each  one  sings ; 
Where  more  saints  flock  in,  and  more,  and  yet  more, 

and  again  yet  more, 

And  not  one  turns  back  to  depart  thro'  the  open  en 
trance  door. 
O  sights  of  our  lovely  earth,  O  sound  of  our  earthly 

sea, 

Speak  to  me  of  Paradise,  of  all  blessed  saints  to  me ; 
Or  keep  silence  touching  them,  and  speak  to  my  heart 

alone 
Of  the  Saint  of  saints,  the  King  of  kings,  the  Lamb  on 

the  Throne. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


182  JUNE    30. 


THE  child  [Jesus]  clasped  His  tiny  arms  about 
His  mother's  neck,  or  laid  His  little  hand 
into  the  strong  hand  of  Joseph,  as  they  walked 
on  the  long  road  to  Egypt,  with  the  same  sim 
ple  desire  to  utter  love  and  to  find  love  which  is 
the  first  sign  of  Life  akin  to  their  own  that  mil 
lions  of  parents'  hearts  have  leaped  to  recognize 
in  their  first-born.  Nay,  he  but  little  understands 
the  dignity  and  unity  of  all  God's  vast  creation 
who  is  offended  or  distressed  when  he  is  told  that 
in  the  Lord  of  Life  these  primal  affections  were  of 
the  same  sort  with  those  which  make  the  beauty 
of  the  life  of  the  beings  which  are  less  than  man. 
Even  the  dog,  the  bird,  the  lion,  know  these 
first  instincts  of  companionship  which  found  their 
consummate  exhibition  upon  earth  when  the  Son 
of  Mary  clung  to  a  human  mother  with  a  human 

lOVe.  INFLUENCE,  79.  80. 

.  .  .  Whate'er  be  the  fate  that  has  hurt  us  or  joyed, 
Whatever  the  face  that  is  turned  to  us  out  of  the  void  ; 
Be  it  cursing  or  blessing ;  or  night,  or  the  light  of  the 

sun  ; 
Be  it  ill,  be  it  good  ;  be  it  life,  be  it  death,  it  is  One  ;  — 

One  thought,  and  one  law,  and  one  awful  and  infinite 
power ; 

In  atom  and  world  ;   in  the  bursting  of  fruit  and  of 
flower ; 

The  laughter  of  children,  and  the  roar  of  the  lion  un 
tamed  ; 

And  the  stars  in  their  courses  — one   name  that  can 
never  be  named. 

RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER. 


JULY    i.  183 

Phillips  Brooks  ordained  Deacon,  1859. 

He  preached  Christ  .   .  .  that  He  is  the  Son  of 
God.  —  ACTS  xx.  20. 

ONLY  he  who  consents  to  enlarge  his  own 
conception  of  the  possibilities  of  faith 
with  God's  can  calmly  watch  the  everlasting 
growth  of  revelation,  see  the  old  open  into  the 
new,  and  yet  know  that  the  truth  of  Christ  is 
the  truth  of  eternity,  and  that  when  the  soul 
of  God  claimed  the  soul  of  man  in  the  Incar 
nation,  it  took  possession  of  it  forever  ;  and 
so  Christian  faith  can  never  die.  There  have 
been  no  nobler  servants  of  God  and  of  hu 
manity  than  they  whose  special  mission  it  has 
been  to  teach  this  truth  to  men.  .  .  . 

To  discriminate  between  the  eternal  sub 
stance  of  Christianity  and  its  temporary  forms, 
to  bid  men  see  how  often  forms  had  perished 
and  the  substance  still  survived,  to  make  men 
know  the  danger  of  imperfect  and  false  tests 
of  faith,  to  encourage  them  to  be  not  merely 
resigned  but  glad  as  they  beheld  the  one  faith 
ever  casting  its  old  forms  away,  and  by  its  un 
dying  vitality  creating  for  itself  new  —  this  was 
the  noble  work  which  Dean  Stanley  did  for 
multitudes  of  grateful  souls  all  over  Chris 
tendom.  He  led  countless  hearts  out  of  the 
surprise  and  fear  of  their  own  day  into  the  un 
surprised  and  fearless  peace  of  faith  in  God. 
Thus  it  was  that  he  opened  wide  the  great 
gates  of  the  Divine  Life,  and  made  the  way 
more  clear  for  the  children  to  their  Father. 

III.  81,  Sz. 


1 84  JULY   2. 


LOVING  obedience,  loving  obedience  is  the 
only  atmosphere  in  which  the  vision  of 
the  general  purpose  and  the  faithfulness  in 
special  work  grow  in  their  true  proportion  and 
relation  to  each  other.  The  distant  hills  with 
the  glory  on  their  summits,  and  the  close 
meadow  where  the  grass  waits  for  the  scythe, 
—  they  meet  completely  in  the  broad  kingdom 
of  a  loved  and  obeyed  Lord.  And  who  is  Lord 
but  Christ  ?  And  where  but  in  the  soul  of  him 
who  finds  in  Christ  the  worthy  revealer  of  the 
life's  purpose  and  the  sufficient  master  of  every 
deed  shall  the  great  ideals  of  life  and  the  petty 
details  of  life  come  harmoniously  together  ? 
Obey  Him,  love  Him,  and  nothing  is  too  great, 
nothing  is  too  little  ;  for  love  knows  no  struggle 
of  great  or  little.  No  impulse  is  too  splendid 
for  the  simplest  task  ;  no  task  is  too  simple  for 
the  most  splendid  impulse.  v.  n9,  J2o. 


1  love  thy  men  and  women,  Lord, 

The  children  round  thy  door  ; 
Calm  thoughts  that  inward  strength  afford--- 

Thy  will,  O  Lord,  is  more. 

But  when  thy  will  my  life  shall  hold, 

Thine  to  the  very  core, 
The  world  which  that  same  will  did  mould, 

I  shall  love  ten  times  more. 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 


JULY    3.  185 


\\  7HILE  the  union  of  duty  and  joy  is  nat 
ural  it  is  not  essential  and  unbreakable. 
The  plant  ought  to  come  to  flower,  but  if  the 
plant  fails  of  its  flower  it  is  still  a  plant.  The 
duty  should  open  into  joy,  but  it  may  fail  of 
joy  and  still  be  duty.  If  the  joy  is  not  there, 
still  hold  the  duty,  and  be  sure  that  you  have 
the  real  thing  while  you  are  holding  that.  Be 
all  the  more  dutiful,  though  it  be  in  the  dark. 
Do  righteousness  and  forget  happiness,  and  so 
it  is  most  likely  that  happiness  will  come. 

1.29. 


Do  only  Thou,  in  that  dim  shrine, 
Unknown  or  known,  remain,  divine; 
There,  or  if  not,  at  least  in  eyes 
That  scan  the  fact  that  round  them  lies, 
The  hand  to  sway,  the  judgment  guide, 
In  sight  and  sense,  Thyself  divide  : 
Be  Thou  but  there,  —  in  soul  and  heart, 
!  will  not  ask  to  feel  Thou  art. 

ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH. 


1 86  JULY   4. 


Land  of  the  willful  gospel,  thou  worst  and  thou  best ; 
Tall  Adam  of  lands,  new-made  of  the  dust  of  the  West ; 
Thou  wroughtest  alone  in  the  Garden  of  God,  unblest 
Till  He  fashioned  lithe  Freedom  to  lie  for  thine  Eve  on 
thy  breast. 

Knowledge  of  Good  and  of  111,  O  Land,  she  hath  given 

thee ; 
Perilous  godhoods  of  choosing  have  rent  thee  and  riven 

thee ; 
Will's  high  adoring  to  Ill's  low  exploring  hath  driven 

thee- 
Freedom,  thy  Wife,  hath  uplifted  thy  life  and  clean 

shriven  thee. 

SiDNtv  LAMKH. 

ON  my  country's  birthday  ...  1  may  ask 
you  for  your  prayer  in  her  behalf.  That 
on  the  manifold  and  wondrous  chance  which 
God  is  giving  her, — on  her  freedom  (for  she  is 
free,  since  the  old  stain  of  slavery  was  washed 
out  in  blood)  ;  on  her  unconstrained  religious 
life  ;  on  her  passion  for  education,  and  her 
eager  search  for  truth  ;  on  her  jealous  care  for 
the  poor  man's  rights  and  opportunities  ;  on 
her  countless  quiet  homes  where  the  future 
generations  of  her  men  are  growing  ;  on  her 
manufactures  and  her  commerce  ;  on  her  wide 
gates  open  to  the  east  and  to  the  west ;  on  her 
strange  meetings  of  the  races  out  of  which  a 
new  race  is  slowly  being  born  ;  on  her  vast 
enterprise  and  her  illimitable  hopefulness,  — 
on  all  these  materials  and  machineries  of  man 
hood,  on  all  that  the  life  of  my  country  must 
mean  for  humanity,  I  may  ask  you  to  pray 
that  the  blessing  of  God  the  Father  of  man, 
and  Christ  the  Son  of  man,  may  rest  forever. 

II.  21. 


JULY   5.  187 


I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil. 

MATT.  v.  17. 

''TEAR  your  sins  away.  Starve  your  tumul 
tuous  passions.  Resist  temptations.  Aye, 
if  you  will,  punish  yourself  with  stripes  for  your 
iniquities.  Cry  out  to  yourself  and  to  your 
brethren,  with  every  voice  that  you  can  raise, 
"Cease  to  do  evil ;  "  but  all  the  time,  down  be 
low,  as  the  deepest  cry  of  your  life,  let  there 
be  this  other,  "  Learn  to  do  well."  If  you  can 
indeed  grow  vigorously  brave  and  true  and 
pure,  then  cowardice  and  falsehood  and  licen 
tiousness  must  perish  in  you.  O  wondrous 
silent  slaughter  of  our  enemies  !  O  wondrous 
casting  out  of  fear  as  love  grows  perfect !  O 
death  to  sin,  which  comes  by  the  new  birth  to 
righteousness  !  O  destruction,  which  is  but 
the  utterance  of  fulfilment  on  the  othei  side ! 
O  everlasting  assurance,  that  evil  has  of  right 
no  place  in  the  world :  and  that  if  good  would 
only  lift  itself  up  to  its  completeness,  it  might 
claim  the  whole  world  and  all  of  manhood  for 
itself!  iv.  218, 213. 


1 88  JULY  6. 

Into  the  woods  my  Master  went, 

Clean  forspent,  forspent. 

Into  the  woods  my  Master  came, 

Forspent  with  love  and  shame. 

But  the  olives  they  were  not  blind  to  Him, 

The  little  gray  leaves  were  kind  to  Him  : 

The  thorn-tree  had  a  mind  to  Him 

When  into  the  woods  He  came. 

Out  of  the  woods  my  Master  went, 

And  He  was  well  content. 

Out  of  the  woods  my  Master  came, 

Content  with  death  and  shame. 

When  Death  and  Shame  would  woo  Him  last, 

From  under  the  trees  they  drew  Him  last : 

'Twas  on  a  tree  they  slew  Him      last 

When  out  of  the  woods  He  came. 

SIDNEY  LAMER. 

TN  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  reason  seemed 
*  to  totter  on  her  throne.  For  the  last  time 
the  desperate  hands  had  to  cling  to  the  truth  in 
instant  fear.  But  there,  too,  it  is  not  by  the  di 
rect  conviction  of  the  reason  ;  it  is  by  the  adjust 
ment  of  the  whole  life  in  obedience  —  to  which, 
no  doubt,  the  reason  gave  its  assent,  but  which 
was  a  transaction  far  beyond  the  reason's  lim 
its —  that  tile  trembling  reason  finds  composure. 
When  He  said,  "Thy  will  be  done,"  all  the 
obscurity  began  to  scatter,  and  those  words 
which  He  said  four  days  later,  after  He  had 
risen,  to  His  disciples,  "Ought  not  Christ  to 
have  suffered  these  things  ?"  .  .  .  words  full 
of  the  peace  of  satisfied  intelligence, — began 

tO  take  Shape  upon  His  lips.  INFLUENCE,  230. 


JULY   7.  189 

SOME  of  you  may  remember  how  our  New 
England  poets'  poet  sings  to  the  farmer 
over  whose  fields  he  has  been  wandering : 

"  One  harvest  from  thy  field 

Homeward  brought  the  oxen  strong  ; 
A  second  crop  thine  acres  yield, 
Which  I  gather  in  a  song." 

This  is  what  makes  the  everlasting  interest  of 
nature  ;  her  capacity  of  endless  association  with 
man,  from  whom  all  real  interest  in  the  world 
must  radiate,  and  to  whom  it  always  must  re 
turn.  As  Emerson  sings  again  of  those  whom 
he  had  loved,  and  who  made  the  landscape  in 
the  midst  of  which  he  had  loved  them  for  ever 
dear : 

"  They  took  this  valley  for  their  toy, 

They  played  with  it  in  every  mood  ; 
A  cell  for  prayer,  a  hall  for  iov  - 
They  treated  nature  as  cney  would. 

"They  coloured  the  horizon  round  ; 

Stars  flamed  and  faded  as  they  bade  ; 
All  echoes  hearkened  for  their  sound,  — 
They  made  the  woodlands  glad  or  mad." 

"  They  treated  nature  as  they  would."  So 
all  men,  all  races,  treat  nature  according  to 
their  wills,  whether  their  wills  be  the  deep 
utterances  of  their  characters  or  only  the  light 
and  fickle  impulses  of  self-indulgence.  And 
what  they  are  to  nature,  nature  is  to  them  — 
to  one  man  the  siren,  who  fascinates  him  to 
drunkenness  and  death  ;  to  another,  the  wise 
friend,  who  teaches  him  all  lessons  of  self- 
restraint  and  sobriety  and  patient  hope  and 
work.  m.  270, 272. 


190  JULY   8. 

Years  of  the  modern  !  years  of  the  unperfonn'd  ! 

Your  horizon  rises,  I  see  it  parting  away  for  more  au 
gust  dramas, 

I  see  not  America  only,  not  only  Liberty's  nation,  but 
other  nations  preparing, 

I  see  tremendous  entrances  and  exits,  new  combina 
tions,  the  solidarity  of  races, 

I  see  that  force  advancing  with  irresistible  power  on 
the  world's  stage. 

Your  dreams,  O  years,  how  they  penetrate  through  me ! 

(I  know  not  whether  I  sleep  or  wake  :) 
The  perform'd  America  and  Europe  grow  dim,    retiring 

in  shadow  behind  me, 
The  unperform'd,  more  gigantic  than  ever,  advance, 

advance  upon  me. 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

WE  must  never  lose  out  of  our  sight  the  vi 
sion,  never  lose  out  of  our  ears  the  music 
of  the  real  Church  and  the  real  world  strug 
gling  each  into  perfection  for  itself,  and  so  both 
into  unity  and  identity  with  one  another. 

Very  interesting  have  been  in  history  the 
pulsations,  the  brightening  and  fading,  the  com 
ing  and  going  of  this  great  truth  of  the  Church 
and  the  world  ideally  identical.  That  truth  is 
always  present  in  the  words  of  Jt-sus.  .  .  . 
The  ideal  Church,  which  was  the  real  Church 
in  his  eyes,  knew  no  limit  but  humanity.  .  .  . 
The  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  active  world, 
the  conflict  and  the  possible  harmony  between 
them,  the  message  of  the  Church  to  the  world, 
the  turning  of  the  world  into  the  Church,  these 
are  the  problems  and  the  visions  which  are 
more  and  more  occupying  the  minds  of  thought 
ful  vision-seeing  men.  iv.  52, 33, 54. 


JULY   9.  191 


OBEYING  Christ,"  we  say  ;  and  what  is 
Christ  ?  I  think  over  all  that  1  know 
of  Him,  and  this  is  what  He  is:  first,  He  is 
the  utterance  of  the  eternal  righteousness,  the 
setting  forth  before  men  of  th'at  supreme  nat 
ure  in  which  there  is  the  source  and  pattern 
of  all  goodness,  —  God;  second,  He  is  a  man 
of  clear,  sharp,  definite  character,  who  lived  a 
life  in  Palestine  which  still  shines  with  a  dis 
tinctness  that  no  other  human  life  can  rival  ; 
third,  by  His  spirit  He  is  a  perpetual  presence, 
a  constant  standard  and  inspiration  in  the 
heart  of  every  man  who  loves  and  trusts 
Him.  All  those  things  come  up  to  me  when 
1  say  "  Christ."  And  now  can  such  a  Christ 
speak  to  me  ?  .  .  . 

There  is  some  act  that  you  are  questioning, 
about  to-morrow  or  to-day.  If  Jesus  were  at 
hand,  you  would  go  out  and  ask  Him,  "Is  it 
Thy  will  that  I  should  do  it,  oh,  my  Lord  ?  " 
Can  you  not  ask  Him  now  ?  Is  the  act  right  ? 
Would  He  do  it  ?  Will  it  help  your  soul  ? 
.  .  .  And  if  the  answer  to  them  all  is  "yes! " 
then  it  is  just  as  truly  His  command  that  you 
should  do  that  act  as  if  His  gracious  figure 
stood  before  your  sight  and  His  finger  visibly 
pointed  to  the  task.  v.  355,  356. 


And  the  Christ  who  came  of  old  to  His  own 

As  truly  comes  to  them  now, 
Where  the  faithful  before  His  altar  throne 

With  hearts  believing  bow,  — 

EMAVANUEL,  then  and  now. 

HARIET  McEwtN  KLWBALL. 


192  JULY  10. 

NOT    merely   to    make  men  love  you  and 
honor  you,  hut  to  know  how  to  be  loved 
and  honored  without  losing  yourself  and  grow 
ing  weak, — that  is  the  problem  of  many  of  the 
sweetest,  richest,  most  attractive  lives.  .  .  . 

If  the  much-beloved  man  can  look  up  and 
demand  the  love  of  God  ;  if,  catching  sight  of 
that,  he  can  crave  it  and  covet  it  infinitely 
above  all  other  love;  if,  laying  hold  of  its 
great  freedom,  he  can  make  it  his,  and  know 
that  he  loves  God,  and  know  that  God  loves 
him, — then  he  is  free.  Then  let  him  come 
back  and  take  into  a  glowing  heart  the  warmest 
admiration  and  affection  of  his  brethren  ;  let 
him  walk  the  earth  with  hosts  of  friends,  the 
heaven  that  he  carries  in  his  heart  preserves 
him.  They  cannot  make  him  conceited,  for  he 
who  lives  with  God  must  be  humble.  They 
cannot  drown  his  selfhood,  for  the  God  he 
loves  and  serves  is  always  laying  upon  him 
his  own  personal  duties,  and  bringing  the  soul 
before  its  own  judgment-seat  every  day. 

V.   .54. 

To  pass  through  life  beloved  as  few  are  loved, 
To  prove  the  joys  of  earth  as  few  have  proved, 
And  still  to  keep  the  soul's  white  robe  unstained, 
Such  is  the  victory  thou  hast  gained. 

And  Love,  that  guards  where  wintry  tempests  beat, 
To  thee  was  shelter  from  the  summer  heat. 
What  need  for  grief  to  blight  or  cares  annoy 
The  heart  whose  God  was  her  exceeding  joy? 

ELIZA  SCUDDER. 


JULY   n.  193 


'"THE  same  light  which  showed  you  the 
heaven  that  you  were  made  for  has  al 
ways  showed  you  the  rock  that  you  were 
chained  to  ;  as  the  same  word  of  Jesus  which 
showed  the  young  nobleman  the  treasures  in 
heaven  brought  back  before  his  mind  the  treas 
ures  on  earth  from  which  he  could  not  tear 
himself  away.  This  makes  the  sacredness 
and  awfulness  of  life  when  we  come  to  know 
it,  that  we  are  never  so  near  our  highest  as 
when  we  are  most  sensible  of  the  danger  of 
our  lowest,  and  the  danger  of  the  lowest  is 
never  so  real  to  us  as  when  the  splendor  of  the 
highest  stands  wide  open.  L  344. 


O  Lord,  how  wonderful  in  depth  and  height, 
But  most  in  man,  how  wonderful  Thou  art ! 

With  what  a  love,  what  soft  persuasive  might 
Victorious  o'er  the  stubborn  fleshly  heart, 

Thy  tale  complete  of  saints  Thou  dost  provide, 

To  fill  the  thrones  which  angels  lost  through  pride ! 

O  what  a  shifting  parti-colo.ed  scene 
Of  hope  and  fear,  of  triumph  and  dismay, 

Of  recklessness  and  penitence,  has  been 
The  history  of  that  dreary,  lifelong  fray  ! 

And  O  the  grace  to  nerve  him  and  to  lead, 

How  patient,  prompt,  and  lavish  at  his  need  ! 

JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN. 


194  JULY    12. 

Aaron  said,  Tlion  knowcst  tlie  people,  t)iat  thcv 
are  set  on  mischief.  For  thc\  said  unto  me,  ^[ake 
us  gods,  which  shall  go  before  us.  .  .  .  An  if  I  said 
unto  them,  Whosoerer  hath  any  gold,  let  them  break 
it  off.  So  they  gave  it  me:  then  I  cast  it  into  t/ie 
fire  and  there  came  out  t/iis  calf. 

Ex.  xxxii.  22,  23,  24. 

'"THE  father  says  of  his  profligate  son  whom 
*•  he  has  never  done  one  wise  or  vigorous 
thing  to  make  a  noble  and  pure-minded  man  : 
"  I  cannot  tell  how  it  has  come.  It  has  not 
been  my  fault.  I  put  him  into  the  world  and 
this  came  out."  The  father  whose  faith  has 
been  mean  and  selfish  says  the  same  of  his 
boy  who  is  a  sceptic.  Everywhere  there  is 
this  cowardly  casting  off  of  responsibilities 
upon  the  dead  circumstances  around  us.  It 
is  a  very  hard  treatment  of  the  poor,  dumb, 
helpless  world  which  cannot  answer  to  defend 
itself.  It  takes  us  as  we  give  ourselves  to  it, 
It  is  our  minister  fulfilling  our  commissions 
for  us  upon  our  own  souls.  If  we  say  to  it, 
"  Make  us  noble,"  it  does  make  us  noble.  If 
we  say  to  it,  "  Make  us  mean,"  it  does  make 
us  mean.  And  then  we  take  the  nobility  and 
say,  "Behold,  how  noble  I  have  made  my 
self."  And  we  take  the  meanness  and  say, 
"See  how  mean  the  world  has  made  me." 

in.  43,  49. 


JULY    13.  195 


ALL  the  separation  from  sin,  all  the  self- 
sacrifice  by  which  alone  you  could  pre 
serve  your  o\vn  purity  and  help  your  brethren, 
has  been  in  you  the  renewal,  the  echo,  of  that 
terrible  giving  of  Himself  for  truth  and  man 
which  Christ  accomplished.  But  if,  as  you 
have  sacrificed  yourself  in  any  way,  there  has 
come  into  you  the  rich  divine  assurance  of 
God's  love,  the  deep  and  peaceful  joy  in  obey 
ing  God,  and  far  bright  hopes  for  your  human 
ity,  broken  but  glorious  prospects  of  what  an 
obedience,  perfect  where  yours  is  stumbling, 
complete  where  yours  is  partial,  shall  some  day 
make  this  world  to  be  ;  if  all  this  has  come  to 
you  upon  your  cross,  as  it  came  to  the  Lord  on 
His,  then  the  glory  as  well  as  the  grief  of  the 
crucifixion  is  renewed  in  you,  and  the  satis 
faction  as  well  as  the  pain  of  your  new  life  is 
uttered  when  you  say,  in  soft  and  solemn 
words,  "I,  too,  am  crucified  with  Christ." 


But  if,  impatient,  thou  let  slip  thy  cross, 

Thou  wilt  not  find  it  in  this  world  again, 

Nor  in  another;  here,  and  here  alone 

Is  given  thee  to  suffer  for  God's  sake. 

In  other  worlds  we  shall  more  perfectly 

Serve  Him  and  love  Him,  praise  Him,  work  for  Him, 

Grow  near  and  nearer  Him  with  all  delight ; 

But  then  we  shall  not  any  more  be  called 

To  suffer,  which  is  our  appointment  here. 

And  while  we  suffer,  let  us  set  our  souls 

To  suffer  perfectly  :  since  this  alone, 

The  suffering,  which  is  this  world's  special  grace, 

May  here  be  perfected  and  left  behind. 

UGO  BASSI'S  SERMON  IN  THE  HOSPITAL. 


196  JULY    14. 


Plainness  and  clearness  without  shadow  of  stain  ! 

Clearness  divine ! 

Ye  heavens,  whose  pure  dark  regions  have  no  sign 

Of  languor,  though  so  calm,  and  though  so  great 

Are  yet  untroubled  and  unpassionate  ! 

Who,  though  so  noble,  share  in  the  world's  toil, 

And,  though  so  task'd,  keep  free  from  dust  and  soil ! 

I  will  not  say  that  your  mild  deeps  retain 

A  tinge,  it  may  be,  of  their  silent  pain 

Who  have  long'd  deeply  once,  and  long'd  in  vain  ; 

But  I  will  rather  say  that  you  remain 

A  world  above  man's  head,  to  let  him  see 

How  boundless  might  his  soul's  hori/ons  be, 

How  vast,  yet  of  what  clear  transparency  ! 

How  it  were  good  to  live  there,  and  breathe  free  ! 

How  fair  a  lot  to  fill 

Is  left  to  each  man  still  ! 

MATTHKW  ARNOLD. 

\  \  7E  have  all  taken  a  sorrow  or  a  perplexity 
^"  out  into  the  noontide  or  the  midnight 
and  felt  its  morbid  bitterness  drawn  out  of  it, 
and  a  great  peace  descend  and  fill  it  from  the 
depth  of  the  majesty  under  whose  arch  we 
stood.  .  .  .  The  sweet  and  solemn  influence 
which  comes  to  you  out  of  the  noontide  or  the 
midnight  sky  does  not  take  away  your  pain, 
but  it  takes  out  of  it  its  bitterness.  It  lifts  it 
to  a  higher  peace.  It  says,  "Be  still  and  wait." 
It  gives  the  reason  power  and  leave  and  time 
to  work.  It  gathers  the  partial  into  the  em 
brace  of  the  universal.  v.  235. 


JULY    15.  197 

IT  is  not  as  the  present  possessor  of  all  truth 
that  (the  church)  invites  men  to  her  house 
hold.  She  must  not  claim  that.  Men  will 
discover  that  her  claim  is  false  if  she  does.  But 
it  is  as  the  possessor  of  truth  out  of  which  God 
will  call,  nay  is  forever  calling  new  truth,  that 
she  summons  men  not  merely  to  a  present 
which  she  offers,  but  to  a  future  in  which  she 
believes.  The  church  is  progressive  by  her 
very  essence.  The  church  is  man  occupied  by 
Christ.  And  since  Christ  cannot  at  once  occupy 
man  completely,  and  cannot  be  satisfied  until 
He  has  occupied  man  completely,  the  church 
must  make  progress.  If  she  ceases  to  advance 
she  dies.  Only  in  all  her  progress  she  believes 
in  the  continuity  and  economy  of  God.  She 
looks  for  the  truth' which  she  is  to  know  to 
come  out  of  the  truth  which  she  knows  al 
ready  ;  and  she  is  sure  that  no  duty  done  or 
light  attained  in  any  most  obscure  corner  of 
her  life  is  wasted,  but  helps  to  the  perfect  duty 
and  the  perfect  light  that  are  to  be.  That  is 
why  in  her  is  the  true  home  for  the  man  who 
most  hopes  and  prays  for  the  progress  of  man 
kind.  „.  I37. 

Past  and  Future  are  the  wings 
On  whose  support  harmoniously  conjoined 
Moves  the  great  spirit  of  human  knowledge. 

WORDSWORTH. 


198  JULY    16. 


A I  7 HO  of  us  has  not  bowed  his  will  to  some 
*  *  supreme  law,  accepted  some  obedience 
as  the  atmosphere  in  which  his  life  must  live, 
and  found  at  once  that  his  mind's  darkness 
turned  to  light,  and  that  many  a  hard  question 
found  its  answer  ?  Who  lias  not  sometimes 
seemed  to  see  it  all  as  clear  as  daylight,  that 
not  by  the  sharpening  of  the  intellect  to  super 
natural  acuteness,  but  by  the  submission  of 
the  nature  to  its  true  authority,  man  was  at 
last  to  conquer  truth  ;  that  not  by  agonizing 
struggles  over  contradictory  evidence,  but  by 
the  harmony  with  Him  in  whom  the  answers 
to  all  our  doubts  are  folded,  a  harmony  with 
Him  brought  by  obedience  to  Him,  our  doubts 
must  be  enlightened  ?  INFLUENCE,  23i. 

O  Thou  who  makest  both  light  and  darkness, 

Thine  is  also  the  light  invisible,  the  revelation  of  God 
to  our  souls. 

God  is  the  Eternal,  who  shows  us  light ;  bind  the  sacri 
fice  of  our  hearts,  with  the  cords  of  good-will. 

If  we  have  lost  Thee,  O  Lord,  show  Thyself  to  us  again  ! 
let  us  seek  Thee  chiefly  in  well-doing. 

O  Thou  that  alone  makest  all  contradictions  clear,  in 
Thy  light  let  us  see  light. 

Illuminate  our  minds  with  practice  of  humility,  and 
confirm  them  with  growth  of  faith. 

Make  our  thoughts  the  lively  echoes  of  Thy  command 
ments  ;  and  take  our  hearts  for  Thy  kingdom. 

BOOK  OF  LITANIES.    ROWLAND  WILLIAMS. 


JULY    17.  199 


TV  A  AN  is  made  so  that  some  sense  of  critical- 
ness  is  necessary  to  the  most  vigorous 
and  best  life  always.  Let  me  feel  that  noth 
ing  but  this  moment  depends  upon  this  mo 
ment's  action,  and  I  am  very  apt  to  let  this 
moment  act  pretty  much  as  it  will.  Let  me 
see  the  spirits  of  the  moments  yet  unborn 
standing  and  watching  it  anxiously  and  I  must 
watch  it  also  for  their  sakes.  ,.  327>  328. 


Daughters  of  Time,  the  hypocritic  Days, 

Muffled  and  dumb  like  barefoot  dervishes, 

And  marching  single  in  an  endless  file, 

Bring  diadems  and  fagots  in  their  hands. 

To  each  they  offer  gifts  after  his  will, 

Bread,  kingdoms,  stars,  and  sky  that  holds  them  all. 

1,  in  my  pleached  garden,  watched  the  pomp, 

Forgot  my  morning  wishes,  hastily 

Took  a  few  herbs  and  apples,  and  the  Day 

Turned  and  departed  silent.     I,  too  late, 

Under  her  solemn  fillet  saw  the  scorn. 

EMERSON. 


200  JULY    1 8. 

'"TO  open  the  eyes  and  find  a  Christ  beside 
1  us, —  not  to  go  long  journeys  to  discover 
a  Christ  with  whom  before  we  have  had  noth 
ing  to  do, — this  is  the  Christian  conversion. 
.  .  .  How  did  the  Saviour  first  prove  Himself 
to  you  ?  Was  it  not  by  the  past  which  sud 
denly  or  gradually  became  full  of  Him,  so  that 
you  recognized  that  He  had  been  busy  on  you 
when  you  did  not  know  it,  that  He  had  been 
leading  you  when  you  thought  you  had  been 
wandering,  so  that  you  saw  your  past  thoughts 
grow  luminous  as  His  inspirations,  your  past 
dreams  as  the  contagions  of  His  presence  and 
the  prophecies  of  His  touch  ?  Was  not  this 
His  answer  when  you  called  Him?  Not,  "  1 
am  coming,"  away  off  in  the  distance,  but 
"  Here  I  am,"  spoken  right  out  of  the  very 
soul  and  centre  of  your  life.  v.  2I2. 

Thou  Life  within  my  life,  than  self  more  near ! 
Thou  veiled  Presence  infinitely  clear  ! 
From  all  illusive  shows  of  sense  I  flee, 
To  find  my  centre  and  my  rest  in  Thee. 

Take  part  with  me  against  these  doubts  that  rise 
And  seek  to  throne  Thee  far  in  distant  skies ! 
Take  part  with  me  against  this  self  that  dares 
Assume  the  burden  of  these  sins  and  cares ! 

How  shall  I  call  Thee  who  art  always  here, 
How  shall  I  praise  Thee  who  art  still  most  dear, 
What  may  I  give  Thee  save  what  Thou  hast  given, 
And  whom  but  Thee  have  I  in  earth  or  heaven  ? 

ELIZA  SCUDDKR. 


JULY   19.  201 

And  the  ransomed  of  tlie  Lord  shall  return, 

And  come  to  Zion  with  songs  and  everlasting  joy 

upon  their  heads  : 
They  shall  obtain  joy  and  gladness,  —  and  sorrow 

and  sighing  shall  flee  away,  —  Ps.  xxxv.  10. 

TOY  and  pain,  so  far  from  being  inconsistent 
^  with  and  contradictory  to  one  another, 
are,  in  some  true  sense,  each  other's  compli 
ments,  and  neither  alone,  but  both  together, 
make  the  true  sum  of  human  life.  There  is  a 
conceivable  world  where  pure,  unclouded  joy 
can  come,  just  as  there  are  countries  where 
the  mountains  are  very  lofty  and  all  nature 
is  on  so  grand  a  scale  that  it  can  bear  a  pure, 
unclouded  sky,  and  in  its  unveiled  splendor,  per 
fectly  satisfy  the  eye.  But  there  are  other 
lands  whose  inferior  grandeur  needs  for  its 
perfect  beauty  the  effects  of  mist  and  cloud 
that  give  its  lower  mountains  the  mystery  and 
poetry  which  they  could  not  have  in  them 
selves.  So  one  may  compare  the  Swiss  and 
the  Scotch  landscapes.  And  something  of  the 
same  sort  is  true  about  this  world  and  marks 
its  inferiority,  proves  that  it  is  not  yet  the 
perfect  state  of  being.  It  needs  the  pain  of 
life  to  emphasize  its  joy.  Its  joy  is  not  high 
or  perfect  enough  to  do  without  the  emphasis 
of  pain.  ,,.  30. 


202  JULY    20. 

ONCE  in  the  hours  while  He  hung  there,  a 
cry  of  desolation,  abandonment,  and  dis 
grace,  burst  from  the  Sufferer's  lips.  "My 
God  !  My  God  !  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  " 
He  cries,  making  His  own  the  words  of  an  old 
psalm  of  woe.  When  I  read  what  men  have 
written  to  explain  the  meaning  of  Jesus  in 
that  cry,  I  always  feel  anew  how  much  deeper 
than  our  comprehension  went  his  identification 
with  humanity  when  He  plunged  into  the  dark 
ness  of  its  sin.  "  He  was  made  flesh  !  "  Into 
what  mysterious  contact  with  the  sinfulness 
to  which  the  flesh  of  man  had  given  itself  that 
being  made  flesh  brought  him,  I  know  no  man 
has  ever  fathomed.  .  .  .  Christ,  who,  in  His 
love,  had  gone  down  to  the  deepest  and  most 
terrible  depths  of  humanity,  even  to  being  cru 
cified  between  two  thieves,  seemed  for  a  mo 
ment  to  have  lost  himself,  and  cried  out  to  the 
Father,  with  whom  He  was  eternally  and  in 
separably  one,  "Oh,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
Me  ?  "  If  the  cry  bewilders  as  we  try  to  com 
prehend  the  deity  to  which  it  appeals,  it  may 
at  least  reveal  to  us  something  of  the  depth 
out  of  which  it  ascends.  ,.  igg(  IQ9,  200. 

He  who  did  most  shall  bear  most:  the  strongest  shall 

stand  the  most  weak. 
'Tis  the  weakness  in  strength  that  I  cry  for:  my  flesh 

that  I  seek 
In  the  Godhead.     I  seek  and  I  find  it. 

BROWNING. 


JULY  21.  203 


\  \  JE  cannot  attain  to  all  abundance  in  this 
**  one  short  life  which  is  our  only  one, 
but  if  we  can  come  to  God  and  be  His  ser 
vants,  the  knowledge  of  how  to  be  things 
which  we  shall  never  be  may  enter  into  us.  In 
poverty  we  may  have  the  blessing  of  riches  ; 
in  enforced  ignorance  the  blessing  of  knowl 
edge  ;  in  loneliness  the  blessing  of  friendship  ; 
and  in  suspense  and  doubt  the  blessing  of 
peace  and  rest.  v.  i57. 


I  wept,  I  prayed 

A  solemn  prayer,  conceived  in  agony, 
Blessed  with  response  instant,  miraculous  ; 
For  in  that  hour  my  spirit  was  at  one 
With  Him  who  knows  and  satisfies  her  needs  ; 
The  supplication  and  the  blessing  sprang 
From  the  same  source,  inspired  divinely  both. 
I  prayed  for  light,  self-knowledge,  guidance,  truth, 
And  these  like  heavenly  manna  were  rained  down 
To  feed  my  hungered  soul. 

Here  was  the  lofty  truth  revealed,  that  each 
Must  feel  himself  in  all,  must  know  where'er 
The  great  soul  acts  or  suffers  or  enjoys, 
His  proper  soul  in  kinship  there  is  bound, 
Then  my  life-purpose  dawned  upon  my  mind, 
Encouraging  as  morning. 

EMMA  LAZARUS. 


204  JULY  22. 

Whosoever  hath,  to  him  shall  he  given,  and  iic 
shall  have  more  abundance.  —  MATT.  xiii.  12. 

'""THIS  has  been  always  true,  that  the  new 
idea  has  always  been  born  of  the  old, 
that  when  men  have  advanced  to  higher  truth 
it  has  been  from  the  basis  of  the  truth  which 
they  have  held  already.  It  has  been  not  by 
flinging  their  net  out  into  the  heavens  in  hopes 
to  catch  a  star,  but  by  digging  deeper  into  the 
substance  of  the  earth  on  which  they  stood, 
and  finding  there  a  root.  And  that  is  what  we 
have  to  look  for  in  the  future.  You  and  I  cling 
to  the  old  historic  statements  of  our  faith.  We 
hold  fast  by  the  old  historic  Church  as  it  ap 
pears  to-day.  What  is  our  feeling  as  we  hold 
fast  there  ?  .  .  .  We  stand  expecting  change 
and  progress,  new  truth,  new  light.  But  we 
stand  here  in  the  historic  Church,  in  the  his 
toric  truth,  because  we  believe  that  the  new 
truth  must  come  out  of  this  old  truth,  the  per 
fect  truth  out  of  this  partial  truth,  some  day. 
We  keep  close  to  the  seven  loaves  because  we 
believe  that  when  the  multitude  is  fed  it  will 
be  with  an  abundance  blessed  by  God  out  of 
this,  which,  however  meagre,  is  still  real. 

n.  136. 


JULY   23.  205 


|\TOT  by  mere  moods,  not  by  how  I  feel  to 
day  or  how  1  felt  yesterday,  may  I  know 
whether  I  am  indeed  living  the  life  of  God,  but 
only  by  knowing  that  God  is  using  me  to  help 
others.  No  mood  is  so  bright  that  it  can  do 
without  that  warrant.  No  mood  is  so  dark 
that,  if  it  has  that,  it  need  despair.  It  is  good 
for  us  to  think  no  grace  or  blessing  truly  ours 
till  we  are  aware  that  God  has  blessed  some 
one  else  with  it  through  us.  L  lg 


We  cannot  kindle  when  \ve  will 
The  fire  which  in  the  heart  resides, 

The  spirit  bloweth  and  is  still, 

In  mystery  our  soul  abides  ; 
But  tasks  in  hours  of  insight  will'd 
Can  be  through  hours  of  gloom  fuliill'd. 

With  aching  hands  and  bleeding  feet 

We  dig  and  heap,  lay  stone  on  stone ; 
We  bear  the  burden  and  the  heat 
Of  the  long  day  and  wish  'twere  done. 
Not  till  the  hours  of  light  return 
All  we  have  built  do  we  discern. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


206  JULY   24. 

Glorify    God  in  your  body,  and  in  your  spirit, 
which  are  God's.—  I.  COR.  vi.  20. 

'"THERE  is  no  true  care  for  the  body  which 
1  forgets  the  soul.  There  is  no  true  care 
for  the  soul  which  is  not  mindful  of  the  body. 
The  pressure  of  psychology  on  physiology,  the 
wise  and  learned,  also  the  unwise  and  igno 
rant,  methods  of  reaching  physical  conditions 
through  the  change  of  mental  states  which  are 
so  prominent  in  the  medical  practice  of  to-day, 
bear  witness  to  the  first  fact.  All  the  kind  of 
teaching  which  a  few  years  ago  went  by  the 
name  of  muscular  Christianity  gives  testimony 
to  the  second. 

.  .  .  The  duty  of  physical  health  and  the 
duty  of  spiritual  purity  and  loftiness  are  not 
two  duties  ;  they  are  two  parts  of  one  duty,— 
which  is  the  living  of  the  completest  life  which 
it  is  possible  for  man  to  live.  And  the  two 
parts  minister  to  one  another.  Be  good  that 
you  may  be  well  ;  be  well  that  you  may  be 
good.  Both  of  those  two  injunctions  are  rea 
sonable,  and  both  are  binding  on  us  all. 

V.  229,  230. 

As  the  bird  wings  and  sings 
Let  us  cry  :  all  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul   helps  flesh   more   now  than  flesh 

helps  soul. 

BROWNING. 


JULY    25.  207 

TO  how  many  a  saint  the  day  and  place 
where  he  first  heard  God's  voice  will  be 
earth's  one  sacred  memory,  even  long  after 
earth's  life  is  over.  Do  you  think  that  Moses 
will  not  speak  of  the  bush,  and  Samuel  of  the 
little  temple-chamber,  and  Peter  and  John  of 
their  boats  on  the  still  lake,  and  Paul  of  the 
Damascus  road,  and  Matthew  of  his  tax-table, 
and  the  poor  woman  of  the  wayside  well,  when 
they  are  met  above  ?  Only  the  last  day  shall 
tell  how  much  of  earth  is  hallowed  ground.  .  .  . 
It  is  indeed  a  goodly  spirit  that  treasures  its 
past  miracles,  that  goes  down  the  gracious 
avenues  of  life  to  find  the  bushes  out  of  which 
it  first  heard  God's  voice.  n  55>  56. 

Magnificent 

The  morning  rose,  in  memorable  pomp, 
Glorious  as  e'er  I  had  beheld,  —  in  front, 
The  sea  lay  laughing  at  a  distance  ;  near, 
The  solid  mountains  shone,  bright  as  the  clouds, 
Grain-tinctured,  drenched  in  empyrean  light; 
And  in  the  meadows  and  the  lower  grounds 
Was  all  the  sweetness  of  a  common  dawn,  — 
Dews,  vapors,  and  the  melody  of  birds, 
And  laborers  going  forth  to  till  the  fields. 
Ah  !  need  I  say,  dear  Friend  !  that  to  the  brim 
My  heart  was  full  ?    I  made  no  vows,  but  vows 
Were  made  for  me  ;  bond  unknown  to  me 
Was  given,  that  1  should  be,  else  sinning  greatly, 
A  dedicated  Spirit.     On  I  walked 
In  thankful  blessedness,  which  yet  survives. 

WORDSWORTH. 


208  JULY   26. 


Y\7"HEN  Christ  showed  us  God,  then  man 
*  *  had  only  to  stand  at  his  highest  and  look 
up  to  the  Infinite  above  him  to  see  how  small 
he  was.  And,  always,  the  true  way  to  be 
humble  is  not  to  stoop  till  you  are  smaller  than 
yourself,  but  to  stand  at  your  real  height 
against  some  higher  nature  that  shall  show  you 
what  the  real  smallness  of  your  greatest  great 
ness  is.  The  first  is  the  unreal  humility  that 
always  goes  about  depreciating  human  nature  ; 
the  second  is  the  genuine  humility  that  always 

stands  in  love  and  adoration,  glorifying  God. 

i.  340, 341. 


1  have  gone  the  whole  round  of  Creation  :  1  saw  and  I 

spoke ! 
I,  a  work  of  God's  hand  for  that  purpose,  received  in 

my  brain 
And  pronounced  on  the  rest  of  His  handwork  —  returned 

Him  again 

His  creation's  approval  or  censure  :  I  spoke  as  I  saw. 
I  report,  as  a  man  may  of  God's  work  —  all's  love  yet 

all's  law! 

And  thus  looking  within  and  around  me,  1  ever  renew 

(With  that  stoop  of  the  soul  which  in  bending  upraises 
it  too) 

The  submission  of  Man's  nothing-perfect  to  God's  All- 
Complete, 

As  by  each  new  obeisance  in  spirit,  I  climb  to  His  feet ! 

BROWNING. 


JULY   27.  209 

O  wretched  man  that  I  am  f  who  shall  deliver 
me  from  the  body  of  this  death  ?  I  thank  God 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  The  laiu  of  the 
Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath  made  me  free 
from  the  law  of  sin  and  death. 

ROM.  vii.  24,  25  ;  viii.  2. 

I  HAVE  no  patience  with  the  foolish  talk  which 
would  make  sin  nothing  but  imperfection, 
and  would  preach  that  man  needs  nothing  but 
to  have  his  deficiencies  supplied,  to  have  his 
native  goodness  educated  and  brought  out,  in 
order  to  be  all  that  God  would  have  him  be. 
The  horrible  incompetency  of  that  doctrine 
must  be  manifest  enough  to  any  man  who  knows 
his  own  heart,  or  who  listens  to  the  tumult  of 
wickedness  which  rises  up  from  all  the  dark 
places  of  the  earth.  Sin  is  a  dreadful,  positive, 
malignant  thing.  What  the  world  in  its  worse 
part  needs  is,  not  to  be  developed,  but  to  be  de 
stroyed.  Any  other  talk  about  it  is  shallow  and 
mischievous  folly.  The  only  question  is  about 
the  best  method  and  means  of  destruction.  Let 
the  sharp  surgeon's  knife  do  its  terrible  work. 
Let  it  cut  deep  and  separate  as  well  and  thor 
oughly  as  it  can,  the  false  from  the  true,  the 
corrupt  from  the  uncorrupt :  it  never  can  dissect 
away  the  very  principle  of  corruption  which  is 
in  the  substance  of  the  blood  itself.  Nothing 
but  a  new  reinforcement  of  health  can  accom 
plish  that,  iv.  217,218. 


210  JULY   28. 

r"THE  power  of  mere  activity  is  often  over- 
*•  rated.  It  is  not  what  the  best  men  do, 
but  what  they  are,  that  constitutes  their  truest 
benefaction  to  their  fellow-men.  The  things  that 
men  do  get  their  chief  value,  after  all,  from  the 
way  in  which  they  are  able  to  show  the  exist 
ence  of  character  which  can  comfort  and  help 
mankind.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  re 
assurance  here  for  many  of  us  who  seem  to 
have  no  chance  for  active  usefulness.  We  can 
do  nothing  for  our  fellow-men.  But  still  it  is 
good  to  know  that  we  can  be  something  for 
them  ;  to  know  (and  this  we  may  know  surely) 
that  no  man  or  woman  of  the  humblest  sort 
can  really  be  strong,  gentle,  pure,  and  good, 
without  the  world  being  better  for  it,  without 
somebody  being  helped  and  comforted  by  the 
very  existence  of  that  goodness.  j.  I05. 

Our  destiny,  our  being's  heart  and  home, 
Is  with  infinitude,  and  only  there  ; 
Witli  hope  it  is,  hope  that  can  never  die, 
Effort,  and  expectation,  and  desire, 
And  something  evermore  about  to  be. 
Under  such  banners  militant  the  soul 
Seeks  for  no  trophies,  struggles  for  no  spoils 
That  may  attest  her  prowess,  blest  in  thoughts 
That  are  their  own  perfection  and  reward, 
Strong  in  herself  and  in  beatitude 
That  hides  her,  like  the  mighty  flood  of  Nile 
Poured  from  his  fount  of  Abyssinian  clouds 
To  fertili/e  the  whole  Egyptian  plain. 

WORDSWORTH. 


JULY  29.  211 

And  He  sail?,  \\~hcreunto  shall  we  liken  the  king 
dom  of  God  ?  or  with  what  comparison  shall  we 
compare  it  ? 

It  is  like  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  when 
it  is  sown  in  the  earth,  is  less  than  all  the  seeds 
that  be  in  the  earth  : 

But  wJicn  it  is  sown,  it  groiveth  up,  and  be- 
coincth  greater  tJian  all  herbs,  and  shooteth  out 
great  branches  ;  so  that  fhe  fowls  of  the  air  may 
lodge  under  the  shadow  of  it.  —  MARK  iv.  30-32. 

OH,  wondrous  tree,  whose  seed  came  surely 
from  the  hand  of  God,  whose  growth 
has  never  passed  out  of  His  watchful  care, 
which  He  has  set  here  in  this  rich,  wayward, 
tumultuous  soil  of  human  life,  how  hast  thou 
wrestled  for  existence  with  this  hounteous  yet 
reluctant  ground,  how  hast  thou  sent  thy  roots 
into  the  pierced  heart  of  man's  affections ! 
Through  what  dark  stormy  nights  hast  thou 
struggled  with  the  winds,  and  grown  strong  in 
wrestling !  How  hast  thou  drawn  up  into  thy 
self  what  is  eternal  and  spiritual  in  man  and 
made  it  claim  its  kinship  to  divinity  !  Oh, 
wondrous  tree  !  oh,  Christian  faith  !  oh,  Chris 
tian  Church  !  so  small,  so  strong!  what  would 
the  world  be  without  thee  ?  What  wouldst 
thou  he  without  the  world  ?  Grow  on  till  in 
thy  life  the  perfect  union  of  the  earth  and 
heaven,  of  God  and  man,  shall  he  complete  ! 

V.  278. 


212  JULY   30. 

T"HERE  is  as  yet  no  culture,  no  method  of 
1  progress  known  to  men,  that  is  so  rich 
and  complete  as  that  which  is  ministered  by  a 
truly  great  friendship.  No  natural  appetite, 
no  artificial  taste,  no  rivalry  of  competition, 
no  contagion  of  social  activity,  calls  out  such  a 
large,  healthy,  symmetrical  working  of  a  human 
nature,  as  the  constant,  half-unconscious  power 
of  a  friend's  presence  whom  we  thoroughly  re 
spect  and  love.  In  a  true  friendship  there 
is  emulation  without  its  jealousy  ;  there  is  imi 
tation  without  its  servility.  When  one  friend 
teaches  another  by  his  present  life,  there  is 
none  of  that  divorce  of  truth  from  feeling,  and 
of  feeling  from  truth,  which  in  so  many  of  the 
world's  teachings  makes  truth  hard,  and  feel 
ing  weak;  but  truth  is  taught,  and  feeling  is 
inspired,  by  the  same  action  of  one  nature  on 
the  other,  and  they  keep  each  other  true  and 
warm.  n.54. 

My  careful  heart  \vas  free  again, 

O  friend,  my  bosom  said, 

Through  thee  alone  the  sky  is  arched, 

Through  thee  the  rose  is  red  ; 

All  things  through  thee  take  nobler  form, 

And  look  beyond  the  earth, 

The  mill-round  of  our  fate  appears 

A  sun-path  in  thy  worth. 

Me  too  thy  nobleness  has  taught 

To  master  my  despair ; 

The  fountains  of  my  hidden  life 

Are  through  thy  friendship  fair. 

EMERSON. 


JULY    31.  213 


"  T  JE  who  does  not  lose  his  reason  in  certain 
11  things,"  says  Lessing,  "has  none  to 
lose."  But  the  reason  is  lost,  not  by  any  palsy 
or  death  that  falls  on  it,  hut  by  the  vehement  life 
of  will  and  affections,  among  which  the  life  of 
the  reason  takes  its  true  place  as  but  one  mem- 
her  of  the  perfect  whole. 

There  is  a  noble  passage  of  Wordsworth 
which  tells  this  same  story,  and  shows  how 
under  the  greatest  influences  of  nature  the  same 
rich  blending  of  the  life  takes  place.  He  is 
describing  the  consecrating  effects  of  early 
dawn  : 

"  What  soul  was  his  when  from  the  naked  top 
Of  some  bold  headland  he  beheld  the  sun 
Rise  up  and  bathe  the  world  in  light.     He  looked  — 
Ocean  and  earth,  the  solid  frame  of  earth 
And  ocean's  liquid  mass,  beneath  him  lay 
In  gladness  and  deep  joy.     The  clouds  were  touched 
And  in  their  silent  faces  did  he  read 
Unutterable  love.     Sound  needed  not 
Nor  any  voice  of  joy  ;  his  spirit  drank 
The  spectacle  ;  sensation,  soul,  and  form 
All  melted  into  him.     They  swallowed  up 
His  animal  being  ;  in  them  did  he  live 
And  by  them  did  he  live.     They  were  his  life. 
In  such  access  of  mind,  in  such  high  hour 
Of  visitation  from  the  Living  God, 
Thought  was  not ;  in  enjoyment  it  expired. 
No  thanks  he  breathed,  he  proffered  no  request ; 
Rapt  into  still  communion  that  transcends 
The  imperfect  offices  of  prayer  and  praise, 
His  mind  was  a  thanksgiving  to  the  Power 
That  made  him  ;  it  was  blessedness  and  love  !  " 

INFLUENCE,  225,230. 


214  AUGUST    i. 

The  mountains  shall  bring  peace  to  the  people, 
and  the  little  hills,  by  righteousness. —  Ps.  Ixxii.  3. 

f~^  HR1ST  set  men  close  to  God,  to  their  true 
selves,  to  the  souls  of  their  brethren,  to 
the  immensity  of  duty  ;  and  He  said  to  them 
there,  what  there  they  understood,  "Be 
humble!  " 

It  was  as  if  He  took  a  proud,  fretful  man  out 
of  the  worrying  life  of  the  selfish  city  and  set 
him  among  the  solemn  mountains,  and  the 
mountains  brought  to  him  the  blessed  peace  of 
humility  and  the  sense  of  his  own  insignifi 
cance.  L  3SI. 

RETURN    TO    THE    HILLS. 

Ah  !  with  boldness  of  lovers  who  wed 

I  make  haste  to  your  feet, 
And  as  constant  as  lovers  who  die, 

My  surrender  repeat ; 
And  I  take  as  the  right  of  my  love, 

And  I  keep  as  its  sign, 
An  ineffable  joy  in  each  sense 

And  new  strength  as  from  wine, 
A  seal  for  all  purpose  and  hope, 

And  a  pledge  of  full  light, 
Like  a  pillar  of  cloud  for  my  day, 

And  of  fire  for  my  night. 

HELJ;N  HUNT  JACKSON. 


AUGUST   2.  215 

Him  that  overcometh  nnll  I  make  a  pillar  in  the 
temple  of  my  God:  and  he  shall  go  no  more  out. 

REV.  iii.    12. 

SLOWLY,  through  all  the  universe,  that 
temple  of  God  is  being  built.  Wherever, 
in  any  world,  a  soul,  by  free-willed  obedience, 
catches  the  fire  of  God's  likeness,  it  is  set  into 
the  growing  walls,  a  living  stone  ....  In 
what  strange  quarries  and  stone-yards  the 
stones  for  that  celestial  wall  are  being  hewn  ! 
Out  of  the  hillsides  of  humiliated  pride ;  deep 
in  the  darkness  of  crushed  despair  ;  in  the 
fretting  and  dusty  atmosphere  of  little  cares  ; 
in  the  hard,  cruel  contacts  that  man  has  with 
man  ;  wherever  souls  are  being  tried  and  ri 
pened,  in  whatever  commonplace  and  homely 
ways;  —  there  God  is  hewing  out  the  pillars 
for  His  temple.  O,  if  the  stone  can  only  have 
some  vision  of  the  temple  of  which  it  is  to  lie 
a  part  forever,  what  patience  must  fill  it  as  it 
feels  the  blows  of  the  hammer,  and  knows  that 
success  for  it  is  simply  to  let  itself  be  wrought 
into  what  shape  the  Master  wills.  n.  71, 72. 


Whereas  on  earth 

Temples  and  palaces  are  formed  of  parts 
Costly  and  rare,  but  all  material, 
So  in  the  world  of  spirits  nought  is  found, 
To  mould  withal  and  form  into  a  whole, 
But  what  is  immaterial  ;  and  thus 
The  smallest  portions  of  this  edifice, 
Cornice,  or  frieze,  or  balustrade,  or  stair, 
The  very  pavement  is  made  up  of  life  — 
Of  holy,  blessed,  and  immortal  beings, 
Who  hymn  their  Maker's  praise  continually. 

JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN. 


2i6  AUGUST    3. 

Thou  art  a  gentle  and  most  loving  Lamb, 

Wounded  to  give  us  balm  ; 
And  still,  wherever  sin  doth  reign, 

Thou  day  by  day  art  slain. 
When  will  man  cease  to  give  Thee  pain? 

ANNA  E.  HAMILTON. 

WE  come  to  the  profoundest  knowledge  and 
the  profoundest  hatred  of  sin  when  we 
come  to  this,  that  it  crucified  the  Son  of  God 
with  wicked  men,  it  made  Jesus  the  sharer  of 
our  human  woe.  Sin  did  this.  Whose  sin  ? 
What  sin?  Then  it  is  that  the  terrible  identity 
of  sin  comes  out.  Here  in  the  presence  of 
God's  suffering  and  dying  Son  the  oneness  of 
God's  family  is  clear.  All  that  we  have  ever 
done  that  has  helped  to  make  the  world  a  dif 
ferent  place  from  that  holy  ground  on  which 
the  Holy  God  might  have  walked  in  perfect 
sympathy  with  His  obedient  children,  all  our 
wilfulness,  all  our  disobedience,  all  our  un 
truth,  all  our  passion,  all  our  lust,  all  our  self 
ishness,  all  our  wickednesses  which  we  call 
little  wickednesses  at  home  or  in  the  street, 
they  all  take  their  place  in,  they  all  declare 
their  oneness  with,  that  sin  which  brought 
Christ  to  the  cro^s.  i.  20I,  K2. 

Lord,  if  Thy  wounds  have  filled  the  world  with  peace, 
What  shall  Thy  joy  do,  when  all  sin  shall  cease, 
And  the  new  earth  shall  yield  her  full  increase  ! 

CAROLINE  M.  NOEL 


AUGUST   4.  217 

/  will  see  you  again,  and  your  lieart  shall  rejoice, 
and  your  joy  no  man  taketh  from  you. 

JOHN  xvi.  22. 

IT  was  a  special  joy,  the  inmost,  the  most 
secret  and  sacred  of  all  joys  which  their 
Master  promised.  Not  for  those  disciples  more 
than  for  other  men  was  nature  to  be  changed, 
or  their  relations  with  their  fellow-men  to  be 
robbed  of  the  power  of  painfulness.  .  .  .  Still, 
just  as  before  Christ  gave  them  His  promise, 
their  reverence  was  shocked,  their  love  was 
wounded,  their  trust  was  betrayed,  their  mo 
tives  were  misjudged  by  fellow-men.  But 
behind  all  this  His  words  revealed  to  them  a 
self  out  of  men's  power,  something  which  no 
fellow-man  could  touch.  .  .  .  There  is  noth 
ing  at  all  of  self-sufficiency  in  what  is  prom 
ised.  It  is  not  that  these  men  are  to  develop 
some  interior  strength,  or  to  drift  into  some 
region  of  calm  indifference  where  the  influ 
ences  of  their  fellow-men  shall  not  touch  them 
any  longer.  It  is  that  they  are  to  come  to  a 
new  life  with  Him.  The  new  joy  which  is  to 
enter  into  them,  which  they  are  to  enter  into, 
is  to  be  distinctly  a  joy  of  relationship  and  not 
of  self-containment,  a  joy  which  is  to  escape 
the  invasion  of  the  men  who  disturb  all  other 
joys  by  being  held  in  the  hand  of  a  stronger 
being  out  of  which  no  earthly  power  shall  be 
able  to  pluck  it  away.  111.229,294. 


218  AUGUST    5. 

How  can  this  man  give  us  His  flcsli  to  cat? 

JOHN  vi.  52. 

HOW  can  He  ?  Certainly  He  can  if  you 
will  go  to  Him  and  pray  to  Him  and  love 
Him  and  obey  Him  and  receive  Him.  And 
what  a  strength  comes  of  that  holy  feeding ! 
Where  is  the  task  that  terrifies  the  man  who 
lives  by  Christ  ?  Where  is  the  discourage 
ment  over  which  he  will  not  walk  to  go  to 
the  right  which  he  must  reach  ?  You  may 
starve  him,  but  he  has  this  inner  food.  You 
may  darken  his  life,  but  he  has  this  inner 
light.  You  may  make  war  about  him,  but  he 
has  this  peace  within.  You  may  turn  the  world 
into  a  hell,  but  he  carries  his  inner  heaven 
safely  through  its  fiercest  fires.  He  is  like 
Christ  Himself.  He  has  meat  to  eat  that  we 
know  not  of,  and  in  the  strength  of  it  he  over 
comes  at  last  and  is  conqueror  through  his 
Lord.  11.251,252. 

'Twas  August,  and  the  fierce  sun  overhead 
Smote  on  the  squalid  streets  of  Bethnal  Green, 
And  the  pale  weaver,  through  his  windows  seen 
In  Spitalfields,  look'd  thrice  dispirited. 

I  met  a  preacher  there  I  knew,  and  said  : 

'  III  and  o'erwork'd,  how  fare  you  in  this  scene? ' 

'  Bravely  ! '  said  he  ;  '  for  I  of  late  have  been 

Much  cheer'd  with  thoughts  of  Christ,  the  living  bread.'1 

O  human  soul !  as  long  as  thou  canst  so 
Set  up  a  mark  of  everlasting  light, 
Above  the  howling  senses'  ebb  and  flow, 

To  cheer  thee,  and  to  right  thee  if  thou  roam  — 
Not  with  lost  toil  thou  laborest  through  the  night ! 
Thou  mak'st  the  heaven  thou  hop'st  indeed  thy  home. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


AUGUST   6.  219 

M'e  were  eve-witnesses  of  His  majesty. 

II.  PET.  "i.   1 6. 

IN  many  respects  this  story  (of  the  Trans 
figuration)  belongs  beside  the  story  of  the 
Temptation.  The  two  mountains  are  the  com 
plements  of  one  another.  As  the  Temptation 
was  the  typical  utterance  of  the  perplexed 
conditions  of  human  living,  so  the  Transfigu 
ration  was  the  irrepressible  utterance  of  the 
essential  glory  of  human  nature  filled  with 
divinity,  reclaimed  and  openly  asserted  to  be 
the  Son  of  God.  And  in  the  Transfiguration, 
as  in  the  Temptation,  the  body  has  its  share. 
Not  merely  does  the  soul  enjoy  sublime  con 
verse  with  God  and  with  the  past.  A  sweet 
and  awful  gladness  shines  out  from  the  face 
and  hands,  and  even  pierces  from  the  hidden 
limbs  through  the  coarse  garments  which 
shine  "white  as  the  light."  I  do  not  know 
the  meaning  of  it  all,  but  1  know  that  what 
came  to  the  spiritual  came  in  some  echo  to  the 
physical,  and  the  body  shared  the  gladness 

of   the    SOul.  INFLUENCE,  160. 

O  God,  who  on  the  mount  didst  reveal  to  chosen 
witnesses  thine  only-begotten  Son  wonderfully  trans 
figured,  in  raiment  white  and  glistering ;  Mercifully 
grant  that  we,  being  delivered  from  the  disquietude  of 
this  world,  may  be  permitted  to  behold  the  King  in  his 
beauty,  who  with  thee,  O  Father,  and  thee,  O  Holy 
Ghost,  liveth  and  reigneth,  one  God,  world  without 
end.  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER. 


220  AUGUST  7. 


I  know  how  to  abound.  —  PHIL.  iv.  12. 

TIMES  (of  great  spiritual  abundance)  have 
their  very  deep  and  subtle  dangers.  .  .  . 
Many  a  Christian  has  failed  just  there.  Soon 
the  great  light,  unused,  has  faded  away  and 
left  the  soul  in  darkness.  Soon  peace  which 
was  not  vitalized  to  power  has  decayed  to 
pride.  Something  of  this  kind  has  come,  1 
think,  to  whole  generations,  to  whole  periods 
of  Christianity.  But  see  !  If  you  lift  up  your 
head,  if  you  put  out  your  hand  and  take  your 
task,  which  certainly  is  waiting  for  you,  then 
instantly  your  high  emotions  know  their  place. 
They  turn  themselves  to  motives.  They  be 
come  the  necessary  habits  of  the  life.  They 
prove  "their  reality  by  what  they  can  make 
you  strong  to  do.  .  .  .  Let  no  spiritual  exal 
tation  come  to  you  without  your  lifting  your 
self  up  in  its  present  power,  and  doing  some 
work  for  God  which  in  your  weaker  moments 
and  lower  moods  has  scared  you  with  its  diffi 
culty.  For  duty  is  the  only  tabernacle  within 
which  a  man  can  always  make  his  home  upon 
the  transfiguration  mountain.  v.  ]56. 

Hark,  hark,  a  voice  amid  the  quiet  intense! 
It  is  thy  Duty  waiting  thee  without. 
Rise  from  thy  knees,  in  hope,  the  half  of  doubt ; 
A  hand  doth  pull  thee  —  it  is  Providence  ; 
Open  thy  door  straightway  and  get  thee  hence ; 
Go  forth  into  the  tumult  and  the  shout ; 
Work,  love,  with  workers,  lovers,  all  about : 
Of  noise  alone  is  born  the  inward  sense 
Of  silence ;  and  from  action  springs  alone 
The  inward  knowledge  of  true  love  and  faith. 

GEORGE  MACDGNALD. 


AUGUST   8.  221 


'"TOO  often  have  the  minds  both  of  religious 
*  and  of  irreligious  men  conceived  of  God 
as  the  great  hinderer  of  human  knowledge. 
Even  those  men  who  thought  they  honored 
Him  supremely  have  talked  about  Him  as  if 
He  loved  the  darkness  ;  they  have  dwelt  upon 
mystery  as  if  it  were  something  which  God 
treasured,  and  which  His  children  were  to 
treasure  for  itself,  as  if  they  did  not  wish  it 
cleared  up  and  made  light.  They  have  imag 
ined  Him  almost  standing  guard  over  whole 
regions  of  knowledge  and  forbidding  them  to 
the  impatient  intellect  of  man.  That  is  not 
the  idea  of  David  ;  that  is  not  the  idea  of  the 
Bible  anywhere.  Against  all  the  folly  of  the 
Church,  and  all  the  ignorance  of  unbelief 
which  declares  that  God  is  darkness,  stands 
up  the  protest  of  John,  who  cries,  "God  is 
light,  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all  ;  "  and 
the  glowing  ascription  of  the  light-loving  David, 
who  declares,  "  In  thy  light,  O  Lord,  we  shall 
see  light."  111.94,95. 

O  Thou,  who  by  the  light  of  nature  dost  enkindle  in 
us  a  desire  after  the  light  of  grace,  that  by  this  Thou 
inayest  translate  us  into  the  light  of  glory,  —  I  give 
Thee  thanks,  O  Lord  and  Creator,  that  Thou  hast 
gladdened  me  by  Thy  creation  when  I  was  enraptured 
by  the  work  of  Thy  hands. 

JOHN   KEPLER- 


222  AUGUST  9. 

THE  vital  principle  is  too  spiritual  to  be 
confined  to  one  form.  It  passes  from 
one  form  into  another  which  is  wholly  differ 
ent,  and  yet  it  remains  essentially  the  same. 
The  buried  seed  and  the  wheat  waving  in  the 
sunshine  are  the  same,  and  yet  how  differ 
ent  they  are  !  .  .  .  There  is  a  power  of  life 
which  pervades  the  universe.  Everywhere  it 
is  identical ;  everywhere  it  is  glorious.  It 
shines  in  everything.  By  it  sun,  moon,  and 
stars  are  clothed  with  radiance.  But  how 
different  is  the  splendor  which  it  gives  to 
each  !  .  .  .  Shall  not  then  this  human  life, 
still  keeping  itself  the  same  human  life,  be 
able  to  go  up  to  heaven  and  stand  in  the  light 
of  God  ?  v.  58 

1  was  only  then 

Contented,  when  with  bliss  ineffable 
I  felt  the  sentiment  of  Being  spread 
O'er  all  that  moves  and  all  that  seemeth  still  ; 
O'er  all  that,  lost  beyond  the  reach  of  thought 
And  human  knowledge,  to  the  human  eye 
Invisible,  yet  liveth  to  the  heart ; 
O'er  all  that  leaps  and  runs,  and  shouts  and  sings, 
Or  beats  the  gladsome  air  ;  o'er  all  that  glides 
Beneath  the  wave,  yea,  in  the  wave  itself, 
And  mighty  depth  of  waters.     Wonder  not 
If  high  the  transport,  great  the  joy  1  felt 
Communing  in  this  sort  through  earth  and  heaven 
With  every  form  of  creature,  as  it  looked 
Towards  the  Uncreated  with  a  countenance 
Of  adoration,  with  an  eye  of  love. 

WORDSWORTH 


AUGUST    10.  223 


]\JOW  under  all  outward  rebellion  and  wick- 
*•  ^  edness,  there  is  in  every  man  who  ought 
to  be  a  friend  of  God,  and  that  means  every 
man  whom  God  has  made,  a  need  of  reconcili 
ation.  To  get  back  to  God,  that  is  the  strug 
gle.  The  soul  is  Godlike  and  seeks  its  own. 
It  wants  its  Father.  There  is  an  orphanage,  a 
homesickness  of  the  heart  which  has  gone  up 
into  the  ear  of  God,  and  called  the  Saviour,  the 
Reconciler,  to  meet  it  by  His  wondrous  life  and 
death.  I,  for  my  part,  love  to  see  in  every 
restlessness  of  man's  moral  life  everywhere, 
whatever  forms  it  takes,  the  struggles  of  this 
imprisoned  desire.  The  reason  may  be  rebel 
lious,  and  vehemently  cast  aside  the  whole 
story  of  the  New  Testament,  but  the  soul  is 
never  wholly  at  its  rest  away  from  God. 


None  other  Lamb,  none  other  Name, 
None  other  Hope  in  heaven  or  earth  or  sea, 

None  other  Hiding-place  from  guilt  and  shame, 
None  beside  Thee. 

My  faith  burns  low,  my  hope  burns  low, 
Only  my  heart's  desire  cries  out  in  me ; 

By  the  deep  thunder  of  its  want  and  woe, 
Cries  out  to  Thee. 

Lord,  Thou  art  Life,  tho'  I  be  dead, 
Love's  Fire  Thou  art  however  cold  I  be  : 

Nor  heaven  have  I,  nor  place  to  lay  my  head, 
Nor  home,  but  Thee. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI, 


224  AUGUST    ii. 


/  therefore,  the  prisoner  of  the  Lord,  beseech  von, 
that  ye  walk  worthy  of  the  vocation  wherewith  ye 
are  called. 

Till  we  all  come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith,  and  of 
the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  perfect 
man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness 
of  Christ.  —  KPH.  iv.  i,  13. 

JV/l  HAN  to  be  something  with  all  your  might. 
*  *  *•  Do  not  add  act  to  act  and  day  to  day  in 
perfect  thoughtlessness,  never  asking  yourself 
whither  the  growing  line  is  leading.  But  at 
the  same  time  do  not  dare  to  be  so  absorbed  in 
your  own  life,  so  wrapped  up  in  listening  to 
the  sound  of  your  own  hurrying  wheels,  that 
all  this  vast  pathetic  music,  made  up  of  the 
mingled  juy  and  sorrow  of  your  fellow-men, 
shall  not  find  out  your  heart  and  claim  it  and 
make  you  rejoice  to  give  yourself  for  them. 
And  yet,  all  the  while,  keep  the  upward  win 
dows  open.  Do  not  dare  to  think  that  a  child 
of  God  can  worthily  work  out  his  career  or 
worthily  serve  God's  other  children  unless  he 
does  both  in  the  love  and  fear  of  God  their 
Father.  Be  sure  that  ambition  and  charity 
will  both  grow  mean  unless  they  are  both 
inspired  and  exalted  by  religion.  Energy, 

love,  and  faith,  those  make  the  perfect  man. 

ii.  126. 


AUGUST  12.  225 


Great  Universe  —  what  dost  thou  with  thy  dead  ! 
Now  thinking  on  the  myriads  that  have  gone 
Into  a  seeming  blank  oblivion, 
With  here  and  there  a  most  resplendent  head,  — 

Eyes  of  such  trancing  sweetness,  or  so  dread, 
That  made  the  soul  to  quake  who  looked  thereon,  - 
All  utterly  wiped  out,  dismissed  and  done  : 
Lost,  speechless,  viewless,  and  forever  tied  ! 

Myriad  on  myriad,  past  the  power  to  count,  — 
Where  are  they,  thou  dumb  Nature?    Do  they  shine, 
Released  from  separate  life,  in  summer  airs, 

On  moony  seas,  in  dawns  ;  —  or  up  the  stairs 
Of  spiritual  being  slowly  mount 
And  by  degrees  grow  more  and  more  divine? 

RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER. 

THERE  are  so  many  souls.  What  world 
can  hold  them  all  ?  What  care  can  rec 
ognize,  and  cover,  and  embrace  them  all  ?  If 
there  only  were  not  so  many  of  us  !  The 
thought  of  one's  own  immortality  sinks 
like  a  tired  soldier  on  a  battle-field,  over 
whelmed  and  buried  under  the  multitude  of 
the  dead.  Have  not  many  of  you  felt  this 
bewilderment  ?  .  .  .  What  can  we  say  to 
it  ?  How  can  we  grasp  and  believe  in  this 
countless  army  of  immortals  who  come  swarm 
ing  up  out  of  all  the  lands  and  all  the  ages  ? 
There  is  only  one  way.  Multiply  numbers  as 
enormously  as  you  will,  and  the  result  is  finite 
still.  Then  set  the  finite,  however  large, 
into  the  presence  of  the  infinite,  and  it  is 
small.  Its  limitations  show.  There  is  no 
finite,  however  vast,  that  can  overcrowd  the 
infinite  ;  none  that  the  infinite  cannot  most 
easily  grasp  and  hold.  .  .  .  Here  must  be 
the  real  solution  of  our  difficulty,  in  the  infinity 
°f  God.  . 


226  AUGUST    13. 


Deep  calleth  unto  deep.  —  Ps.  xlii.  17. 

'"THE  words  of  David  suggest  to  me  also  that 
*•  there  is  such  a  thing  as  deep  calling  unto 
shallow,  —  by  which  1  mean,  of  course,  the  pro 
found  and  sacred  interests  of  life  crying  out  and 
finding  nothing  but  the  slight  and  foolish  and 
selfish  parts  of  a  man  ready  to  reply.  There  are 
a  host  of  men  who  .  .  .  have  perception  enough 
to  hear  the  great  questions  and  see  the  great 
tasks  ;  but  they  have  not  earnestness  and  self- 
control  enough  to  answer  them  with  serious 
thought  and  strong  endeavor ;  so  they  sing  their 
answer  to  the  thunder,  which  is  not  satisfied  or 
answered.  That  is  what  1  mean  by  deep  calling 
unto  shallow.  v.  243. 


But  ye  who  have  seemed  to  know  us,  have  seen  and 

heard  ; 
Who  have  set  us  at  feasts  and  have  crowned  with 

the  costly  rose ; 
Who  have  spread  us  the  purple   of  praises  beneath 

our  feet ; 
Yet  guessed  not  the  word  that  we  spake  was  a  living 

word, 
Applauding  the  sound, — \ve  account  you  as  worse 

than  foes ! 

We  sobbed  you  our  message;  ye  said,  "  It  is  song 
and  sweet "  ! 

HELEN  GRAY  CONE. 


AUGUST    14.  227 

Gird  up  the  loins  of  your  i/iintf,  be  sober. 

I.  PET.  i.  13. 
A  merry  heart  doeth  good  like  a  medicine. 

PROV.  xvii.  22. 

C^  RAVITY  ...  I  mean  simply  that  grave 
v-I  and  serious  way  of  looking  at  life  which, 
while  it  never  repels  the  true  lightheartedness 
of  pure  and  trustful  hearts,  welcomes  into  a 
manifest  sympathy,  the  souls  of  men  who  are 
oppressed  and  burdened,  anxious  and  full  of 
questions  which  for  the  time  at  least  have 
banished  all  laughter  from  their  faces.  .  .  . 
Gravity  has  a  delicate  power  of  discrimination. 
It  attracts  all  that  it  can  help  and  it  repels  all 
that  could  harm  it  or  be  harmed  by  it.  It 
admits  the  earnest  and  simple  with  a  cordial 
welcome.  It  shuts  out  the  impertinent  and 
insincere  inexorably. 

The  gravity  of  which  1  speak  is  not  incon 
sistent  with  the  keenest  perception  of  the 
ludicrous  side  of  things.  It  is  more  than  con 
sistent  with  —  it  is  even  necessary  to  —  humor. 
Humor  involves  the  perception  of  the  true 
proportions  of  life.  ...  It  has  softened  the 
bitterness  of  controversy  a  thousand  times. 
You  cannot  encourage  it  too  much.  You  can 
not  grow  too  familiar  with  the  books  of  all 
ages  which  have  in  them  the  truest  humor,  for 
the  truest  humor  is  the  bloom  of  the  highest 
life.  Read  George  Eliot  and  Thackeray,  and, 
above  all,  Shakespeare.  They  will  help  you 
to  keep  from  extravagances  without  fading 
into  insipidity.  They  will  preserve  your 
gravity  while  they  save  you  from  pompous 

solemnity.  PREACHING,  54-58. 


228  AUGUST    15. 

THE  mountains  to  the  Hebrew  were  always 
full  of  mystery  and  awe.  They  stood 
around  the  sunlit  level  of  his  daily  life  robed  in 
deep  clouds,  the  home  of  wandering  winds, 
flowing  down  with  waters,  trembling,  as  it 
seemed,  with  the  awful  footsteps  of  God. 

They  made  indeed  for  him  the  background 
of  all  life,  as  they  make  the  background  of 
every  landscape  in  which  they  stand.  .  .  .  The 
foreground  of  the  plain-land  rests  upon  the 
background  of  the  hills.  From  them  it  gains 
its  lights  and  shadows.  The  two  depend  on 
one  another.  ...  To  most  men  the  actual 
immediate  circumstances  of  life  are  so  pressing 
that  they  forget  the  everlasting  truths  and 
forces  by  which  those  circumstances  must  be 
made  dignified  and  strong.  Then  must  come 
something  like  the  cry  of  Amos  the  Prophet, 
"  Lo,  He  that  formeth  the  mountains,  and 
createth  the  wind,  and  declareth  unto  man 
what  is  His  Thought,  that  maketh  the  morn 
ing  darkness  and  treadeth  upon  the  high  places 
of  the  earth."  Is  there  not  in  these  words, 
dimly  but  very  grandly  and  majestically  set 
forth,  the  great  suggestion  of  the  divine  back 
ground  of  all  life  ?  It  is  the  same  which  Ten 
nyson  has  pictured  in  the  Vision  of  Sin : 

"  At  last  I  heard  a  voice  upon  the  slope 
Cry  to  the  summit,  '  Is  there  any  hope? ' 
To  which  an  answer  pealed  from  that  high  land, 
But  in  a  tongue  no  man  could  understand  ; 
And  on  the  glimmering  limit  far  withdrawn 
God  made  Himself  an  awful  rose  of  Dawn." 

V.    106,  108- 


AUGUST    16.  229 


'"THINK,  of  sin  as  a  mistake,  or  as  an  incon- 
1  venience,  and  you  stand  in  great  danger, 
first,  of  compromising  with  it,  and  second,  of 
using  low  and  even  sinful  methods  of  opposing 
it.  But  think  of  sin  as  a  frightful  wrong  in 
itself,  a  blot  and  curse  in  the  universe  of  God, 
and  you  grow  at  once  absolutely  intolerant  of 
it,  and  at  the  same  time  watchfully  anxious 
about  the  nature  of  the  weapons  which  you 
shall  use  to  fight  it  with.  .  .  .  Only  when 
pity  for  it  joins  with  horror  at  it  in  our  hearts, 
as  they  join  in  the  heart  of  God,  each  keeping 
the  other  strong  and  pure,  only  then  can  we 
go  out  to  meet  it  with  a  perfect  determination, 
bound  never  to  lay  down  our  arms  so  long  as 
there  is  any  sin  left  in  the  world  ;  and  at  the 
same  time,  with  an  absolute  conviction  that  no 
impatience  to  rid  the  world  of  sin  must  tempt 
us  for  a  moment  to  use  any  means  for  its  de 
struction  which  are  not  pure  and  just ;  an 
absolute  conviction  that  it  is  better  that  sin 
should  be  left  master  of  the  field,  than  that  it 
should  be  fought  with  sin.  iv.  27i,  272. 

But  if  \ve  strove  to  stand  in  battle  line  like  soldiers 

true, 
Above  us  we  should  see  God's  help  descending  from 

the  sky. 

Ready  is  He  to  help  all  those  that  fight, 
And  build  their  hopes  upon  His  kindliness. 
He  makes  for  us  chances  to  fight  —  that  we  may  win. 

THOMAS  A  KEMPIS. 


230  AUGUST  17. 


JVTEVER,  no  matter  how  long  exclusion  from 
the  presence  of  God  may  seem  to  last, 
though  it  go  on  year  after  year  and  you  are 
growing  old  in  your  seeming  orphanhood  ; 
never  accept  it,  never  make  up  your  mind  to 
it  that  it  is  right ;  never  cease  to  expect  that 
the  doors  will  fly  open  and  you  will  be  admitted 
to  all  the  joy  of  your  Father's  felt  love  and  of 
unhindered  communion  with  Him.  Never  lose 
out  of  your  soul's  sight  the  seat  which  is  set 
for  you  in  the  very  sanctuary  of  divine  love. 
And  what  beside  ?  Seek  even  more  deeply 
the  satisfaction  which  is  in  your  consecration 
itself;  and  that  you  may  find  it,  consecrate 
yourself  more  and  more  completely,  i.  30>  3i. 


And  should  the  twilight  darken  into  night, 

And  sorrow  grow  to  anguish,  be  thou  strong  ; 

Thou  art  in  God,  and  nothing  can  go  wrong 
Which  a  fresh  life-pulse  cannot  set  aright. 
That  thou  dost  know  the  darkness,  proves  the  light. 

Weep  if  thou  wilt,  but  weep  not  all  too  long  ; 

Or  weep  and  work,  for  work  will  lead  to  song. 

GKORUE  MACDONALU. 


AUGUST    18.  231 


IT  is  a  strange  perplexing  fact  of  life,  this 
fact  that  as  a  being  or  a  work,  which  has 
seemed  perfect  in  some  lower  region,  goes  up 
to  some  higher  region,  it  seems  to  grow  imper 
fect  ;  at  least  it  manifests  its  imperfection.  We 
can  see  at  once  what  a  temptation  it  must 
offer  to  the  human  powers  to  linger  in  some 
lower  sphere,  in  which  they  seem  to  be  equal 
to  their  work,  instead  of  going  freely  up  into  a 
loftier  world  where  they  shall  learn  their  lim 
itations  and  their  feebleness.  There  is  reason 
enough  to  fear  that  man's  power  of  thought, 
revelling  to-day  in  the  clearness  with  which  it 
seems  to  see  the  lower  world  of  physical  exist 
ence,  will  refuse  some  of  the  higher  duties 
which  belong  to  it,  the  duties  which  most  tax 
its  capacity  and  show  its  feebleness,  the  duties 
of  understanding  the  soul  of  man  and  reaching 
after  the  comprehension  of  God.  Sad  will  it 
be  if  it  is  so  ;  if  studious  humanity,  delighted 
with  its  achievements  in  the  mere  region  of 
physical  research,  shall  turn  its  back  on  the 
lofty  tasks  in  which  man's  intellect  finds  its 
greatest  glory  as  well  as  its  most  complete 

humility  —  the  struggle  to  know  God. 

in.  206, 207. 

Thou  art  so  great,  that  the  greatest  powers  and 
minds,  which  Thou  couldest  create,  would  all  together 
contain  but  a  little  of  Thee.  And  yet  Thou  wiliest  that 
such  as  1  should  adore  Thee  and  know  Thee,  and  in  all 
eternity  love  Thee.  PUSEY. 


232  AUGUST    19. 


"  Because  we  are  sons,  God  has  sent  the  spirit  <>/ 
His  Son  into  our  hearts." 

DECAUSE  we  are  sons,  His  Son  Himself 
*-*  could  take  our  nature  upon  Him.  The 
more  truly  we  believe  in  the  Incarnate  Deity, 
the  more  devoutly  we  must  believe  in  the  es 
sential  glory  of  humanity,  the  more  earnestly 
we  must  struggle  to  keep  the  purity  and  integ 
rity  and  largeness  of  our  own  human  life,  and 
to  help  our  brethren  to  keep  theirs.  It  is  be 
cause  the  divine  can  dwell  in  us  that  we  may 
have  access  to  divinity.  i.  240, 24I. 

Lord,  carry  me.  —  Nay,  but  1  grant  thee  strength 
To  walk  and  work  thy  way  to  Heaven  at  length.  - 

Lord,  why  then  am  I  weak? — .Because  I  give 
Power  to  the  weak,  and  bid  the  dying  live.  — 

Lord,  I  am  tired.  —  He  hath  not  much  desired 
The  goal,  who  at  the  starting-point  is  tired.  — 

Lord,  dost  thou  know?  —  I  know  what  is  in  man  ; 
What  the  flesh  can,  and  what  the  spirit  can.  — 

Lord,  dost  thou  care  ?  —  Yea,  for  thy  gain  or  loss 
So  much  1  cared,  it  brought  me  to  the  Cross.  — 

Lord,  I  believe  ;  help  Thou  mine  unbelief.  — 
Good  is  the  word  ;  but  rise,  for  life  is  brief. 
The  follower  is  not  greater  than  the  Chief  : 
Follow  thou  Me  along  My  way  of  grief. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


AUGUST  20. 


REST  in  expectation  we  may  all  have  now 
if  we  believe  in  God  and  know  we  are 
His  children.  Every  taste  of  Him  that  we 
have  ever  had  becomes  a  prophecy  of  His 
perfect  giving  of  Himself  to  us.  It  is  as  when 
a  pool  lies  far  up  in  the  dry  rocks,  and  hears 
the  tide  and  knows  that  her  refreshment  and 
replenishing  is  coming.  How  patient  she  is. 
The  other  pools  nearer  the  shore  catch  the  sea 
first,  and  she  hears  them  leaping  and  laughing, 
but  she  waits  patiently.  She  knows  the  tide 
will  not  turn  back  till  it  has  reached  her.  And 
by  and  by  the  blessed  moment  comes.  The 
last  ridge  of  rock  is  over  washed.  The  stream 
pours  in  ;  at  first  a  trickling  thread  sent  only  at 
the  supreme  effort  of  the  largest  wave  ;  but  by 
and  by  the  great  sea  in  its  fulness.  It  gives 
the  waiting  pool  itself  and  she  is  satisfied.  So 
it  will  certainly  be  with  us  if  we  wait  for  the 
Lord,  however  He  delays,  and  refuse  to  let 
ourselves  be  satisfied  with  any  supply  but 
Him.  n.  286. 

As  torrents  in  summer, 
Half  dried  in  their  channels, 
Suddenly  rise,  though  the 
Sky  is  still  cloudless, 
For  rain  has  been  falling 
Far  off  at  their  fountains  ; 

So  hearts  that  are  fainting 
Grow  full  to  o'erflowing, 
And  they  that  behold  it 
Marvel,  and  know  not 
That  God  at  their  fountains 
Far  off  has  been  raining  ! 

LONGFELLOW. 


234  AUGUST    21. 


"T  O,  I  am  with  you  alway,"  Christ  de- 
*— '  clares.  And  souls  to-day,  many  and 
many  of  your  souls,  my  friends,  have  found 
the  rich  fulfilment  of  His  promise.  Sometimes 
it  comes  to  us  with  a  strange  surprise  When 
we  are  living  on  as  if  we  lived  alone,  when  we 
are  sitting  working  silently  in  some  still  room 
which  we  think  is  empty  but  for  our  own 
presence,  when  we  are  busy  in  some  work 
which  seems  as  if  it  were  our  work,  to  be  done 
as  we  should  please  ;  slowly,  sweetly,  surely 
we  become  aware  of  a  richer  presence  which 
is  truly  with  us,  of  a  love  which  enfolds  us, 
and  an  authority  which  controls  us.  We  are 
not  alone.  The  work  is  not  our  work  but  His. 
The  strength  to  do  it  with  is  not  to  be  called 
up  out  of  the  depths  of  ourselves,  but  taken 
down  from  the  heights  of  Him.  The  room  is 
full,  the  world  is  full  of  Jesus.  He  is  doing 
what  He  said  He  would  do.  He  is  with  us  as 
He  said  He  would  be.  IH.  297. 


Thy  calmness  bends  serene  above, 

My  restlessness  to  still ; 
Around  me  flows  Thy  quickening  life 

To  nerve  my  faltering  will ; 
Thy  presence  fills  my  solitude  : 
Thy  providence  turns  all  to  good. 

SAMUEL  LONGFELLOW. 


AUGUST   22.  235 

IF  you  must  pass  through  what  is  even  a  desert 
to  get  to  fertile,  smiling  lands  beyond,  still 
it  is  not  good  to  count  even  the  desert  a  mere 
necessary  evil  to  be  got  through  and  forgotten 
as  soon  as  possible.  It  is  good  as  you  plod 
through  the  sand  to  feed  your  eyes  with  the 
vastness  and  simplicity  of  the  world  which  the 
monotony  of  sky  and  sand  can  most  impressively 
display  to  you.  So  if  God  has  appointed  to  any 
of  us  times  of  solitude  and  friendlessness,  — 
perhaps  times  of  unpopularity  and  neglect,  — 
let  us  pray  that  we  may  not  pass  through  them, 
however  dreary  they  may  be,  without  bringing 
out  from  them  greater  conceptions  of  Him  and 
of  our  fellow-men  and  of  ourselves,  y.  172,  i73. 

A  dreary  desert  dost  thou  trace, 

And  quaff  a  bitter  bowl  ? 
The  desert  make  thy  Holy  Place  ; 

Sing  as  thou  drinkest,  Soul ! 
Or  walkest  thou  'neath  shining  skies, 

A  garden  all  the  road  ? 
Sing,  Soul,  and  make  thy  paradise 

The  Paradise  of  God  ! 

T.   H.  GILL. 

Oh,  my  young  friends,  prosperous  and  happy, 
with  life  all  full  of  hope  and  chance  and  light, 
.  .  .  no  lot  is  too  rich  for  a  soul  that  enters  into 
it  full  of  humility  before  God,  and  love  for 
fellow-men,  and  a  deep  desire  for  holiness. 

V.  156. 


236  AUGUST   23. 


Ami  I  saw  as  it  were  a  sea  of  glass  mingled 
with  fire,  and  them  that  had  gotten  the  victory  over 
the  beast  .  .  .  stand  on  the  sea  of  glass,  having 
the  harps  of  God. —  REV.  xv.  2. 

"  ""THEY  who  have  gotten  the  victory  over 
*  the  Beast"  are  they  who  have  come 
out  of  sin  holy,  and  out  of  trial  pure,  and  out 
of  much  tribulation  have  entered  into  the  king 
dom  of  heaven. 

These  are  to  walk  upon  "  a  sea  of  glass, 
mingled  with  fire."  What  does  that  imagery 
mean?  The  sea  of  glass,  the  glassy  sea,  with 
its  smooth  transparency  settled  into  solid  still 
ness  without  a  ripple  or  the  possibility  of  a 
storm,  calm,  clear,  placid — evidently  that  is 
the  type  of  repose,  of  rest,  of  peace.  And 
fire,  with  its  quick,  eager,  searching  nature, 
testing  all  things,  consuming  what  is  evil,  puri 
fying  what  is  good,  never  resting  a  moment, 
never  sparing  pain ;  fire,  all  through  the  Bible, 
is  the  type  of  active  trial  of  every  sort,  of 
struggle.  "The  fire  shall  try  every  man's 
work  of  what  sort  it  is."  "  The  sea  of  glass," 
then,  "  mingled  with  fire,"  is  repose  mingled 
with  struggle.  It  is  peace  and  rest  and  achieve 
ment,  with  the  power  of  trial  and  suffering 
yet  alive  and  working  within  it.  It  is  calm 
ness  still  pervaded  by  the  discipline  through 
which  it  has  been  reached.  iv. 


112. 


AUGUST   24.  237 

7^hough  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  Him. 

JOB  xiii.  16. 

nrO  stand  with  the  good  things  of  life  all 
stripped  away,  to  stand  beaten  and  buf 
feted  by  storms  of  disaster  and  disappointment, 
to  stand  with  all  our  brethren  saying,  "Behold, 
how  God  hates  him,"  and  yet  to  know  as 
suredly  in  our  own  hearts  that  God  loves  us, 
to  know  it  so  assuredly,  with  the  intercourse 
that  lies  between  our  heart  and  His,  that  we 
can  freely  let  go  the  outward  tokens  of  His  love, 
as  the  most  true  and  trusty  friends  do  not  need 
to  take  gifts  from  one  another  for  assurance  of 
their  affection,  — this  surely  is  the  perfection  of 
a  faithful  life.  It  is  the  gathering  up  of  all  hap 
pinesses  into  one  happiness  which  is  so  rich  that 
it  can  live  without  them  all,  and  yet  regally 
receives  them  into  itself  as  the  ocean  receives 
the  rivers. 

V.  320. 

Thou,  Lord,  alone,  art  all  Thy  children  need, 

And  there  is  none  beside  ; 
From  Thee  the  streams  of  blessedness  proceed, 

In  Thee  the  blest  abide,  — 
Fountain  of  life,  and  all-abounding  grace, 
Our  source,  our  centre,  and  our  dwelling-place. 

MADAMK  GUYON. 


238  AUGUST   25. 

With  brain  o'erworn,  with  heart  a  summer  clod, 
With  eye  so  practised  in  each  form  around,-— 
And  all  forms  mean,  — to  glance  above  the  ground 
Irks  it,  each  day  of  many  days  we  plod, 
Tongue-tied  and  deaf,  along  life's  common  road. 
But  suddenly,  we  know  not  how,  a  sound 
Of  living  streams,  an  odour,  a  flower  crowned 
With  dew,  a  lark  upspringing  from  the  sod, 
And  we  awake.     O  joy  and  deep  amaze  ! 
Beneath  the  everlasting  hills  we  stand, 
We  hear  the  voices  of  the  morning  seas, 
And  earnest  prophesyings  in  the  land, 
While  from  the  open  heaven  leans  forth  at  ga/e 
The  encompassing  great  cloud  of  witnesses. 

EDWARD  DOWDEN. 

T  IFE  is  always  opening  new  and  unexpected 
things  to  us.  There  is  no  monotony  in 
living  to  him  who  walks  even  the  quietest  and 
tamest  paths  with  open  and  perceptive  eyes. 
The  monotony  of  life,  if  life  is  monotonous  to 
you,  is  in  you,  not  in  the  world.  ...  It  is 
God,  and  the  discovery  of  Him  in  life,  and  the 
certainty  that  He  has  plans  for  our  lives  and  is 
doing  something  with  them,  that  gives  us  a 
true,  deep  sense  of  movement,  and  lets  us  al 
ways  feel  the  power  and  delight  of  unknown 
coming  things.  v,  288, 28g> 


AUGUST   26.  239 

T^HH  Church  has  in  herself  the  very  doctrine 
of  tradition.  She  teaches  the  child  a  faith 
that  has  the  warrant  of  the  ages,  full  of  devotion 
and  of  love.  She  calls  on  him  to  believe  doc 
trines  of  which  he  cannot  be  convinced  as  yet. 
The  tradition,  the  hereditation  of  belief,  the 
unity  of  the  human  history,  are  ideas  very 
familiar  to  her,  of  which  she  constantly  and 
beautifully  makes  use.  And  yet  she  does  not 
disown  her  work  of  teaching  and  arguing  and 
convincing.  She  cannot,  and  yet  be  true  to  her 
mission.  She  teaches  the  young  with  the  voice 
of  authority  ;  she  addresses  the  mature  with  the 
voice  of  reason.  Let  her  give  up  the  first  func 
tion,  and  her  assemblies  would  turn  into  mere 
societies  of  debate.  Let  her  abandon  the  second, 
and  they  must  be  blighted  with  some  doctrine  of 
infallibility.  i.6?. 

We  beseech  Thine  Omnipotence,  Holy  God,  Father 
Almighty,  that  Thou  wouldst  fill  us  with  the  gift  of 
Thine  Only-begotten  Son,  and  the  ineffable  blessing, 
visitation,  and  life-giving  power  of  Thine  and  His  Holy 
Spirit,  whereby  Thy  Church,  enkindled  with  His  fire, 
may  hold  the  true  faith  in  Him  from  Whom  she  receives 

all  truth. 

ANCIENT  COLLECTS.    BRIGHT. 


240  AUGUST   27. 

HTHE  world  does  say  to  us,  "  Enjoy;  "  and 
1  it  is  good  for  us  to  hear  her  invitation. 
But  for  the  world  to  say,  and  for  us  to  hear, 
nothing  better  or  deeper  than  "  Enjoy  "  is  to 
turn  the  relation  between  the  world  and  man 
into  something  hardly  better  than  that  which 
exists  between  the  corn-field  and  the  crows.  It 
is  clothing  one's  self  with  cobwebs.  Only  when 
the  deeper  communion,  rich  and  full  and  strong, 
is  going  on  below,  between  the  depths  of  life 
and  the  depths  of  man,  — only  then  is  the  sur 
face  communion  healthy  and  natural  and  good. 
He  who  is  always  hearing  and  answering  the 
call  of  life  to  be  thoughtful  and  brave  and  self- 
sacrificing,  —  he  alone  can  safely  hear  the  other 
cry  of  life,  tempting  him  to  be  happy  and  enjoy. 

V.  242. 

And  the  dreamer  saw  the  sorrow  and   he  heard   the 

bitter  cries, 
And  he  left  his  dreams  of  morning,  and  his  Earthly 

Paradise ; 

And  he  changed  his  lyre  of  music  for  the  bugle  of  the 

fight, 
And  he  sounded  forth  his  challenge  to  the  myrmidons 

of  Night, 

To  the  tyrant  and  oppressor  who  had  done  the  people 

wrong, 
While  he  led  the  marching  millions  with  the  summons 

of  his  song. 

ALLEN  EASTMAN  CROSS. 


AUGUST    28.  241 


A17ITH  our  modern,  half-personal,  unlocal- 
'*  ized  ideas  of  Jesus,  it  must  always 
be  striking  —  sometimes  it  is  startling  —  to 
remember  that  there  was  one  little  district 
of  a  few  miles  square  upon  the  surface  of 
this  earth,  which  was  known  as  "  His  own 
country."  That  little  group  of  hills  with  the 
quiet  valleys  among  them  which  lies  between 
Nazareth  and  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  He  loved 
as  we  love  the  streets  or  farms  where  we 
were  born.  And  not  very  far  off  to  the  south 
ward  lay  the  great  city  of  His  race,  where  His 
feet  neve r  seemed  to  enter  except  solemnly. 

INFLUENCE,  130. 


This  is  the  earth  he  walked  on  ;  not  alone 
That  Asian  country  keeps  the  sacred  stain  ; 
'Tis  not  alone  the  far  Judaean  plain, 
Mountain  and  river  !     Lo,  the  sun  that  shone 

On  him  shines  now  on  us  ;  when  day  is  gone 
The  moon  of  Galilee  comes  forth  again 
And  lights  our  path  as  his :  an  endless  chain 
Of  years  and  sorrows  makes  the  round  world  one. 

The  air  we  breathe,  he  breathed,  —  the  very  air 
That  took  the  mold  and  music  of  his  high 
And  godlike  speech.  —  Since  then  shall  mortal  dare 

With  base  thought  front  the  ever-sacred  sky,  — 
Soil  with  foul  deed  the  ground  whereon  he  laid 
In  holy  death  his  pale,  immortal  head. 

RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER. 


242  AUGUST    29. 

"  \A/HY  cannot  I  tull°w  thee  now?  Why 
*  *  this  delay  of  the  divinest  life  ? 
Why  so  much  duty  with  so  little  strength  ? 
Why  only  the  journey  and  the  hunger  and 
the  thirst,  without  the  brook  of  refreshment 
by  the  way  ?"  No  man  can  wholly  answer 
these  questions,  but  multitudes  of  saints,  if 
they  could  speak,  would  tell  you  how  in  their 
hindered  lives  God  kept  them  true  to  such 
experience  as  they  had  attained  ;  and  so  it 
was  that,  by  and  by,  either  before  or  after  the 
great  enlightenment  of  death,  the  hindrance 
melted  away,  and  they  who  had  been  crying 
for  years,  "  Lord,  why  cannot  we  follow  thee 
now?"  passed  forth  into  the  multitude  of 
those  who  "follow  the  Lamb  whithersoever 
He  goeth."  i.3I,32. 

For  who  that  leans  on  His  right  arm 
Was  ever  yet  forsaken  ? 
What  righteous  cause  can  suffer  harm 
If  He  its  part  has  taken  ? 

Though  wild  and  loud 

And  dark  the  cloud 

Behind  its  folds 

His  hand  upholds 
The  calm  sky  of  to-morrow. 

God  give  us  grace 
Each  in  his  place 
To  bear  his  lot, 
And  murmuring  not 
Endure  and  wait  and  labor. 

LUTHER. 


AUGUST    30.  243 

Gamaliel  said  unto  them  .  .  .  Refrain  from 
these  men  and  let  them  alone  :  for  if  this  counsel  or 
this  work  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to  nought:  but  if 
it  be  of  God,  yc  cannot  overthrow  it.  —  ACTS  v.  38. 

HTHERE  are  some  men  whose  whole  influence 
is  to  keep  history  open,  so  that  whatever 
good  thing  is  trying  to  get  done  in  the  world 
can  get  done  ;  not  the  doers  of  great  things,  but 
the  men  who  help  to  keep  the  world  so  truly 
poised  that  good  forces  shall  have  a  chance  to 
work.  These  words  of  Gamaliel  seem  to  point 
him  out  as  being  such  a  man.  .  .  .  Such 
men  in  our  community,  in  our  family  circles,  in 
our  own  little  groups,  whatever  they  are,  any  of 
us  may  be  —  men  who  shall  do  something  to 
hold  the  soul  of  our  little  group  in  such  ex 
pectancy  and  readiness,  in  such  unwillingness 
to  settle  down  upon  the  imperfect  present  as  a 
finality,  that  when  the  inspired  word  or  deed 
shall  come,  as  it  is  sure  to  come  some  time,  it 
shall  find  the  atmosphere  ready  to  receive  it  and 
transmit  it.  We  cannot  make  the  wind  to  blow 
—  it  bloweth  where  it  listeth;  but  we  can  keep 
the  windows  open,  so  that  when  it  blows  the 
chambered  life  about  us  shall  not  fail  to  receive 
its  freshness.  m.  253,255. 


244  AUGUST    31. 


\/OU  have  your  cross,  my  friend.  You  do 
1  not  serve  your  Lord  without  surrender. 
There  is  pain  in  the  duty  which  you  do.  But 
if  in  all  your  pain  you  know  that  God's  love  is 
becoming  a  dearer  and  plainer  truth  to  you, 
and  that  you  are  finding  the  pleasure  of  obey 
ing  God  ;  and  that  the  vision  of  the  world's 
redemption  is  growing  more  certain  and  bright, 
then  you  can  be  more  than  brave  ;  you  can 
triumph  in  every  task,  in  every  sacrifice. 
Your  cross  has  won  something  of  the  beauty 
and  glory  of  your  Lord's.  Rejoice  and  be  glad, 
for  you  are  crucified  with  Christ.  \.  2o8. 


As  flames  that  consume  the  mountains,  as  winds  that 
coerce  the  sea, 

Thy  men  of  renown  show  forth  Thy  might  in  the 
clutch  of  death  : 

Down  they  go  into  silence,  yet  the  Trump  of  the  Jubi 
lee 

Swells  not  Thy  praise  as  swells  it  the  breathless  pause 
of  their  breath. 

What  is  the  flame  of  their  fire,  if  so  I  may  catch  the 

flame ; 
What  is-  the  strength  of  their  strength,  if  also  I  may 

wax  strong  ? 
The  flaming  fire  of  their  strength  is  the  love  of  Jesu's 

Name, 

In  Whom  their  death  is  life,  their  silence  utters  a  song. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


SHPTRMRHR    i.  245 


look  forward  into  the  opening  months 
and  ...  if  we  have  no  religion  (or  do 
not  use  the  religion  which  we  have,  as  many 
religious  men  do  not)  we  think  of  what  will 
happen  as  the  falling  of  accidents  or  as  the  ma 
turing  of  self-ripening  processes.  If  we  think 
of  it  at  all  religiously,  we  talk  about  God  send 
ing  messages  to  us.  If  our  religion  is  a  real  live 
thing,  we  feel  God  actually  coming  to  us  Him 
self,  in  all  the  unknown  things  which  are  to 
happen.  .  .  .  Ah,  after  all,  that  is  every 
thing.  To  know  that  there  is  no  accident.  To 
know  that  indeed  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
mere  message  of  God.  To  know  that  He  is 
always  coming  to  us,  to  know  that  there  is 
nothing  happening  to  us  which  is  not  His  com 
ing.  To  know  all  that,  is  to  find  the  most  trivial 
life  made  solemn,  the  most  cruel  life  made  kind, 
the  most  sad  and  gloomy  life  made  rich  and 
beautiful.  iv.365, 366. 


From  East  to  West,  the  God  unshrined 

Is  still  discovering  me. 

EDWARD  DOWDBN. 


246  SEPTEMBER   2. 


Jesus  said  unto  them,  I  am  the  bread  of  life. 

JOHX  vi.  31. 

THE  Lord's  Supper,  the  right  and  need  of 
every  man  to  feed  on  God,  the  bread  of 
divine  sustenance,  the  wine  of  divine  inspira 
tion  offered  to  every  man,  and  turned  by  every 
man  into  what  form  of  spiritual  force  the  duty 
and  the  nature  of  each  man  required,  how 
grand  and  glorious  its  mission  might  become ! 
No  longer  the  mystic  source  of  unintelligible 
influence ;  no  longer  certainly  the  test  of  ar 
bitrary  orthodoxy  ;  no  longer  the  initiation  rite 
of  a  selected  brotherhood  ;  but  the  great  sacra 
ment  of  man  !  .  .  .  There  is  no  other  rallying- 
place  for  all  the  good  activity  and  worthy  hopes 
of  man.  It  is  in  the  power  of  the  great  Chris 
tian  Sacrament,  the  great  human  sacrament, 
to  become  that  rallying-place.  Think  how  it 
would  be,  if  some  morning  all  the  men,  women, 
and  children  in  this  city  who  mean  well,  from 
the  reformer  meaning  to  meet  some  giant  evil 
at  the  peril  of  his  life  to  the  school  boy  mean 
ing  to  learn  his  day's  lesson  with  all  his 
strength,  were  to  meet  in  a  great  host  at  the 
table  of  the  Lord,  and  own  themselves  His 
children,  and  claim  the  strength  of  His  bread 
and  wine,  and  then  go  out  with  calm,  strong, 
earnest  faces  to  their  work.  How  the  com 
munion  service  would  lift  up  its  voice  and  sing 
itself  in  triumph,  the  great  anthem  of  dedicated 
human  life  !  Ah,  my  friends,  that,  nothing  less 
than  that,  is  the  real  Holy  Communion  of  the 
Church  of  the  living  God.  iv.  46,47,48. 


SEPTEMBER   3.  247 


IT  seems  very  certain  that  the  world  is  to  grow 
better  and  richer  in  the  future,  however  it 
has  been  in  the  past,  not  by  the  magnificent 
achievements  of  the  highly-gifted  few,  but  by 
the  patient  faithfulness  of  the  one-talented  many. 
If  we  could  draw  back  the  curtains  of  the  mil 
lennium  and  look  in,  we  should  see  not  a 
Hercules  here  and  there  standing  on  the  world- 
wasting  monsters  he  had  killed  ;  but  a  world 
full  of  men  each  with  an  arm  of  moderate 
muscle,  but  each  triumphant  over  his  own  little 
piece  of  the  obstinacy  of  earth  or  the  ferocity  of 
the  brutes.  It  seems  as  if  the  heroes  had  done 
almost  all  for  the  world  that  they  can  do,  and 
not  much  more  can  come  till  common  men 
awake  and  take  their  common  tasks.  I  do 
believe  the  common  man's  task  is  the  hardest. 
The  hero  has  the  hero's  aspiration  that  lifts  him 
to  his  labor.  All  great  duties  are  easier  than  the 
little  ones,  though  they  cost  far  more  blood  and 
agony.  !.  14I. 

Is  Heroism  dead  in  this  our  day? 

No  more  rides  forth  in  shining"  mail  the  knight, 

To  do  brave  deeds  in  battle  for  the  right, 

Or  glitter  in  the  tournament's  array  ; 

But  has  the  noble  heart  burned  out  for  aye 

Which  kindled  in  those  breasts  such  living  fire? 

Nay,  Virtue's  flame  may  but  more  straight  aspire 

With  every  breath  of  glory  shut  away. 

Who  keep,  'mid  bosom  foes,  their  souls  alive, 

Who  furnish  other's  need  at  cost  untold, 

With  young  hopes  wounded,  unapplauded  strive, — 

Are  they  no  knights?    A  Master  said  of  old 

That  Honor  but  from  Service  doth  derive  ; 

From  Him  their  title  comes,  their  rank  they  hold. 

HARRIET  WARE  HALL. 


248  SEPTEMBER    4. 


Whatsoever  ye  do  in  word  or  deed,  do  all  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  giving  thanks  to  God  and 
the  Father  by  Him.  Knowing  that  of  the  Lord  ye 
shall  receive  the  reward  of  the  inheritance :  for  ye 
serve  the  Lord  Christ. —  COL.  iii.  17,  24. 

MAKE  your  business  the  centre  and  fountain 
of  your  joy,  and  then  life  will  be  healthy 
and  strong.  Then  you  will  not  be  running 
everywhere  to  find  some  outside  pleasure 
which  shall  make  up  to  you  for  your  self-sacri 
ficing  toil  ;  but  the  scenes  of  your  self-sacrific 
ing  toil  itself,  your  store  or  your  office  or  your 
work-bench,  shall  be  bright  with  associations 
of  delight,  and  vocal  with  your  thankfulness 
to  the  God  who  has  given  you,  in  them,  the 
most  radiant  revelations  of  Himself.  This  is 
the  only  true  transfiguration  and  success  of 
labor  and  of  life.  n.  . 


The  mountain  that  the  morn  doth  kiss 
Glad  greets  its  shining  neighbor  ; 

Lord,  heed  the  homage  of  our  bliss,  — 
The  incense  of  our  labor. 

Now  the  long  shadows  eastward  creep, 

The  golden  sun  is  setting  ; 
Take,  Lord  !  the  worship  of  our  sleep,  — 

The  praise  of  our  forgetting. 

RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER. 


SEPTEMBER    5.  249 


BE  interested  in  some  pursuit  which  will 
take  you  into  quite  unfamiliar  fields. 
Make  yourself  at  home  in  the  Public  Library,  . 
that  great  organ-forest  of  sweet  and  solemn 
and  inspiring  sounds,  which  will  speak  to  us 
if  we  come  and  sit  and  are  hungry  for  its 
music.  Let  the  country,  when  you  can,  scat 
ter  the  cobwebs  of  the  city  out  of  your  brain 
and  send  you  back  to  its  richer  life  refreshed 
and  simplified.  Above  all,  let  the  peace  of 
God,  the  peace  of  trust  and  love,  the  peace 
of  religion,  flow  in  upon  your  consciousness 
the  moment  that  business  care  gives  it  a  mo 
ment's  freedom.  ^Whenever  necessary  thought 
of  self, gives  way  for  an  hour,  O  how  good  it 
is  if  the  thought  of  the  Father  instantly,  with 
out  waiting  to  be  summoned,  takes  possession 
of  the  child.  iv.  235. 


Calm  soul  of  all  things  !  make  it  mine 
To  feel,  amid  the  city's  jar, 
That  there  abides  a  peace  of  thine, 
Man  did  not  make,  and  cannot  mar ! 

The  will  to  neither  strive  nor  cry, 
The  power  to  feel  with  others  give  ! 
Calm,  calm  me  more  !  nor  let  me  die 
Before  1  have  begun  to  live. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


250  SEPTEMBER  6. 


All  things  arc  yours  ;  whether  Paul,  or  Apollos, 
or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life,  or  death,  or 
tilings  present,  or  tilings  to  come;  all  are  \onrs  ; 
and  ye  are  Chris fs  ;  and  Christ  is  God's.  In 
Whom  are  hid  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge.  —  I.  COR.  iii.  22,  23.  COL.  ii.  3. 


'"THE  man  who  has  gone  on  his  way,  as  most 
*•  of  us  have  to  do,  with  little  learning,  but 
has  also  gone  on  his  way  doing  duty  faithfully, 
developing  all  the  practical  skill  that  is  in  him. 
and  sometimes,  just  because  their  details  are  so 
dark  to  him,  getting  rich  visions  of  the  general 
light  and  glory  of  the  great  sciences,  seen  afar 
off,  seen  as  great  wholes,  which  often  seem  to 
be  denied  to  the  plodders  who  spend  their  lives 
in  the  close  study  of  those  sciences,  —  he  is  the 
man  who  knows  how  to  be  unlearned.  It  is  a 
blessed  thing  that  there  is  such  a  knowledge 
possible  for  overworked,  practical  men.  The 
man  who  has  that  knowledge  may  be  self-re 
spectful  in  the  face  of  all  the  colleges.  He  may 
;tand  before  the  kings  of  learning  and  not  be 
ashamed  ;  for  his  lot  is  as  true  a  part  of  life  as 
theirs,  and  he  is  bravely  holding  up  his  side  of 
that  great  earth  over  which  the  plans  of  God 
are  moving  on  to  their  completeness.  v.  i69. 


SEPTEMBER   7.  251 


My  God!  My  God!  Why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
Me  ? —  MATT,  xxvii.  46. 

"THOUGH  I  do  not  understand  this  c;y  fully, 
I  know  that  I  come  nearest  to  its  mean 
ing  when  its  meaning  seems  to  me  most 
simple.  It  is  pure  love,  —  love  thwarted, 
hindered,  and  perplexed,  but  yet  pure  love, 
with  that  triumph  which  love  always  carries 
in  its  very  existence  whether  it  reach  its 
object  and  call  back  response  or  not.  Jesus 
does  not  beg  for  release.  He  does  not  even 
ask  for  vindication.  He  only -utters  love. 

And  that  cry  after  His  Father  lets  us  look 
down  into  His  heart  and  see  that  in  loving 
His  Father  and  being  loved  by  Him  was  His 

perpetual  joy.  INFLUENCE,  i77. 

O  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Who  didst  cry  from  the  Cross 
to  Thy  Father,  My  God,  My  God,  why  hast  Thou 
forsaken  Me?  and  Who  didst  say  to  Thine  Apostles, 
It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away  :  grant  that, 
when  we  are  forsaken  for  a  while  by  Thee,  we  may 
not  despair  ;  vouchsafe  that,  when  we  cannot  see  Thee 
to  be  with  us,  we  may  not  utterly  faint ;  but  possessing 
our  souls  in  patience,  may  follow  Thee  in  the  night  of 
Thy  tribulation,  till  at  length  we  behold  the  day  of 
Thy  glory,  BOOK  OF  LITANIES.  NEALE, 


252  SEPTEMBER   8. 


TT  may  be  that  God  used  to  give  you  plentiful 
chance  to  work  for  Him.  Your  days  went 
singing  by,  each  winged  with  some  enthusiastic 
duty  for  the  Master  whom  you  loved.  .  .  . 
You  can  be  idle  for  Him,  if  so  He  wills,  with 
the  same  joy  with  which  you  once  labored  for 
Him.  The  sick-bed  or  the  prison  is  as  welcome 
as  the  harvest-field  or  the  battle-field,  when 
once  your  soul  has  come  to  value  as  the  end  of 
life  the  privilege  of  seeking  and  of  finding  Him 

V.  321,  322. 

O  Lord,  fulfil  Thy  Will 

Be  the  days  few  or  many,  good  or  ill : 

Prolong  them,  to  suffice 

For  offering  up  ourselves  Thy  sacrifice  ; 

Shorten  them  if  Thou  wilt, 

To  make  in  righteousness  an  end  of  guilt. 

Yea,  they  will  not  be  long 

To  souls  who  learn  to  sing  a  patient  song  : 

Yea,  short  they  will  not  be 

To  souls  on  tiptoe  to  flee  home  to  Thee. 

O  Lord,  fulfil  Thy  Will  : 

Make  Thy  Will  ours,  and  keep  us  patient  still 

Be  the  days  few  or  many,  good  or  ill. 

CHRISTINA  RosbErn. 


SEPTEMBER  9.  253 

The  Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us. 

JOHN  i.   14. 

"THEN  were  the  capacities  of  our  human 
*•  flesh  declared.  Then  in  the  strong  and 
healthy  life  of  Jesus  it  was  made  known  to 
what  divine  uses  a  strong  body  might  be 
given.  And  since  everything  in  this  world 
properly  belongs  to  the  highest  uses  to  which 
it  may  possibly  be  put,  the  strong  human  body 
was  there  declared  to  belong  to  righteousness 
and  God.  Thenceforward  after  Jesus  and  His 
life,  wherever  human  flesh  appeared  at  its 
best,  wherever  a  human  body  stood  forth 
specially  strong,  specially  perfect  and  beauti 
ful,  it  had  the  mark  and  memory  of  the  Incar 
nation  on  it.  It  might  be  totally  perverted. 
It  might  be  given  to  the  Devil.  But,  since  the 
work  that  Jesus  did,  the  life  that  Jesus  lived 
in  a  human  body,  the  human  body  in  its  full 
est  vigor  has  belonged  to  the  high  work  which 
He  did  in  it,  the  service  of  God  and  help  of 
fellow-man.  Its  vigor  is  His  mark  upon  it. 
Feel  this,  and  then  how  sacred  becomes  the 
body's  health  and  strength.  It  is  no  chance, 
no  luxury.  God  means  that  in  it  you  should 
do  work  for  Him.  By  it  He  claims  you  for 
His  own.  He  to  whom  God  has  given  it,  is 
bound  to  have  strong  convictions,  a  live  con 
science,  and  intense  earnest  purposes  of  work. 

n.  366,  36? 


254  SEPTEMBER    10. 


Far  better  never  to  have  heard  the  name 
Of  zeal  and  just  ambition,  than  to  live 
Baffled  and  plagued  by  a  mind  that  every  hour 
Turns  recreant  to  her  task  ;  takes  heart  again, 
Then  feels  immediately  some  hollow  thought 
Hang  like  an  interdict  upon  her  hopes. 
This  is  my  lot ;  for  either  still  I  find 
Some  imperfection  in  the  chosen  theme, 
Or  see  of  absolute  accomplishment 
Much  wanting,  so  much  wanting,  in  myself, 
That  1  recoil  and  droop,  and  seek  repose 
In  listlessness  from  vain  perplexity, 
Unprofitably  travelling  toward  the  grave, 
Like  a  false  steward  who  hath  much  received 

And  renders  nothing  back. 

WORDSWORTH, 

A  NY  man  who  is  good  for  anything,  if  he  is 
"^  always  thinking  about  himself,  will  come 
to  think  himself  good  for  nothing  very  soon. 
It  is  only  a  fop  or  a  fool  who  can  bear  to  look 
at  himself  all  day  long,  without  disgust.  And 
so  the  first  thing  for  a  man  to  do,  who  wants 
to  use  his  best  powers  at  their  best,  is  to  get 
rid  of  self-consciousness,  to  stop  thinking 
about  himself  and  how  he  is  working,  alto 
gether,  i. 


142- 


SEPTEMBER    11.  255 


Do  you  dare  to  be 

Of  the  great  majority? 

To  be  only  as  the  rest, 

With  Heaven's  common  comforts  blessed  ; 

To  accept,  in  humble  part, 

Truth  that  shines  on  every  heart ; 

Never  to  be  set  on  high, 

Where  the  envious  curses  fly  ; 

Never  name  or  fame  to  find, 

Still  outstripped  in  soul  and  mind  ; 

To  be  hid,  unless  to  God, 

As  one  grass-blade  in  the  sod, 

Under  foot  with  millions  trod? 

If  you  dare,  come,  with  us  be 

Lost  in  Love's  great  unity  ?  E.  R.  SILL. 

If  I  feel  God  behind  all  existence,  then  there 
is  a  great  identity  established  between  all  the 
utterances  of  Him  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  human  life.  The  volcanoes  know 
each  other,  —  Etna  crying  out  to  Vesuvius 
across  the  sea,  —  because  of  the  oneness  of  the 
central  fire  from  which  they  all  proceed.  Let 
me  know  God,  the  source  of  all  that  man  does 
anywhere,  and  then,  O  poet,  sing  your  song  ! 
O  sculptor,  carve  your  statue  !  O  builder,  build 
your  house !  O  engineer,  roll  out  your  railroad 
on  the  plain  !  O  sailor,  sail  your  ship  across  the 
sea  !  They  are  all  mine.  I  am  glad  ;  I  am  proud 
of  them  all.  Is  it  not  what  Paul  wrote  so 
triumphantly  to  his  disciples, —  "  All  things  are 
yours,  and  you  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is 
God's"?  v.  70,71. 


256  SEPTEMBER    12. 


Jesus  said,  Make  the  men  sit  down. 

JOHN  vi.  10. 

HTHE  disciples  as  well  as  the  stragglers  from 
*  Capernaum  —  perhaps  the  busy  disciples 
more  than  anybody  else  in  all  the  crowd  — 
must  have  needed  Christ's  call  to  sit  down 
and  be  fed.  The  more  earnestly  you  are  at 
work  for  Jesus,  the  more  you  need  times  when 
what  you  are  doing  for  Him  passes  totally  out 
of  your  mind,  and  the  only  thing  worth  think 
ing  of  seems  to  be  what  He  is  doing  for  you. 
That  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  days  of  dis 
couragement  and  self-contempt  which  come  to 
all  of  us,  O  fellow  laborers  for  the  Lord. 

God  of  all  love  and  pity, 

Thy  children  gently  guide  ; 
With  heavenly  food  supply  us, 

All  needful  good  provide. 

By  waters  still,  refresh  us  ; 

As  patiently  we  wait, 
Till  Thou,  the  Fount  of  brightness, 

Our  souls  illuminate. 

Our  wishes  and  affections, 

Our  impulses  and  powers, 
We  yield  unto  Thy  guidance  ; 

For  they  are  Thine,  not  ours. 

With  strong  attraction  draw  us 

Unto  Thyself  alone, 
O  King  of  Saints,  and  bring  us 

Unto  Thy  sapphire  throne. 

CAROLINE  M.  NUKL 


SEPTEMBER    13.  257 


MAKE  your  most  simple  act  complete  ;  do 
your  most  common  daily  duty  from  its 
divinest  motive,  and  what  a  change  will  come ! 
Still  your  life  will  need  days  of  retirement, 
when  it  will  shut  the  gates  upon  the  noisy 
whirl  of  action  and  be  alone  with  God.  But 
it  will  not  be  upon  them  that  it  will  mostly 
depend  for  spiritual  nourishment.  They  will 
be  like  great  exceptional  banquets  and  ex 
traordinary  feasts  of  grace.  The  daily  bread 
of  spiritual  life,  the  ordinary  feeding  of  the 
soul  on  God,  which  really  makes  its  sustenance, 
will  be  in  the  perpetual  doing  of  the  works  of 
life  for  Him.  The  real  sitting  down  to  be  fed 
will  be  mysteriously  identical  with  the  most 
eager  and  energetic  standing  on  the  feet  to  do 
His  will! 

IV,  238. 

Nothing  remains  to  say  to  Thee,  O  Lord, 

1  am  confessed, 
All  my  lips'  empty  crying  Thou  hast  heard, 

My  unrest,  my  rest. 

Why  wait  I  any  longer?    Thou  dost  stay, 
And  therefore,  Lord,  1  would  not  go  away. 

Then  when   Thou  seekest  Thy  way,  and  1,  mine, 

Let  the  World  be 
Not  wide  and  cold  after  this  cherishing  shrine 

lllum'd  by  Thee, 

Nay,  but  worth  worship,  fair,  a  radiant  star, 
Tender  and  strong  as  Thy  chief  angels  are. 

EDWARD  DOWDEN. 


258  SEPTEMBER  14. 


Father,  I  will  that  they  also,  wliom  Thou  hast 
given  me,  be  with  me  where  I  am. — JOHN  xvii.  24. 

THAT  was  Christ's  prayer.  He  prayed  it 
at  the  Passover  table.  The  next  day 
He  prayed  it  in  all  the  silent  appeal  of  His 
suffering  upon  the  Cross.  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me."  The  cross 
was  Christ's  supreme  utterance  of  His  longing 
that  all  men  might  be  rescued  out  of  sin  and 
brought  to  holiness.  As  we  stand  and  see 
Him  suffer,  one  thought,  one  cry  alone  arises 
in  our  hearts.  Oh,  how  He  must  have  wanted 
to  save  us  !  How  terrible  sin  must  have 
seemed  to  Him  !  How  glorious  holiness  must 
have  seemed,  that  such  a  prayer  as  this  sacri 
fice  of  Himself  should  thus  have  gone  up  to 
God  for  our  salvation  !  L  3,3,  V4. 

Be  merciful,  be  gracious  ;  spare  him,  Lord. 
Be  merciful,  be  gracious  ;  Lord,  deliver  him. 

From  all  that  is  evil ; 
From  power  of  the  devil ; 
Thy  servant  deliver, 
For  once  and  forever. 

By  Thy  birth,  and  by  Thy  Cross, 

Rescue  him  from  endless  loss  ; 

By  Thy  death  and  burial, 

Save  him  from  a  final  fall ; 

By  Thy  rising  from  the  tomb, 
By  Thy  mounting  up  above, 
By  the  Spirit's  gracious  love, 

Save  him  in  the  day  of  doom. 

JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN. 


SEPTEMBER    15.  259 


J  TNDER  every  discouragement,  untouched  by 
O  any  scepticism  or  contempt  of  scornful 
friend  or  foe,  there  has  lain  at  the  bottom  of  the 
soul  a  conviction  too  deep  for  reason  to  give  an 
account  of,  that  this  which  seemed  so  impossible 
could  be  done.  The  soul  could  break  through 
its  selfishness,  could  despise  danger  and  pain, 
could  enter  into  communion  with  God.  .  .  . 
But  now  what  happened  —  one  of  the  things 
which  happened  —  at  the  Incarnation  was  that 
this  assurance,  which  had  lain  at  the  bottom  of 
the  human  heart,  came  forth  and  was  a  living, 
manifest  Being.  It  put  on  human  flesh.  It 
spoke  with  human  lips.  It  worked  with  human 
hands.  Christ  was  what  man  had  felt  in  his 
soul  that  he  might  be.  Christ  did  what  man's 
heart  had  always  told  him  that  it  was  in  his  hu 
manity  to  do.  The  new  man  which  the  old 
manhood  had  always  felt  struggling  within  itself 
came  forth,  and  men  knew  themselves,  their 
true  selves,  for  the  first  time  manifest  in  Him. 
This  was  what  made  man's  hope  thenceforth 
another  thing.  The  stars  at  which  men  had 
guessed,  knowing  with  what  they  called  cer 
tainty  that  they  were  there,  lo  !  in  the  Incarna 
tion  they  burned  out  visibly.  iv.  281,282. 

Shine,  my  only  Day-star,  shine: 
So  mine  eyes  shall  wake  by  Thine  ; 
So  the  dreams  I  grope-in  now 
To  clear  visions  all  shall  grow ; 
So   my  day  shall  measured  be 
By  Thy  Grace's  clarity ; 
So  shall  I  discern  the  Path 
Thy  sweet  Law  prescribed  hath ; 
For  Thy  ways  cannot  be  shown 
By  any  light  but  by  Thine  own. 

JOSEPH  BEAUMONT. 


2<5o  SEPTEMBER    16. 


TTOW  every  truth  attains  to  its  enlargement 
1  *  and  reality  in  this  great  truth, — that 
the  soul  of  man  carries  the  highest  possibilities 
within  itself,  and  that  what  Christ  does  for  it 
is  to  kindle  and  call  forth  these  possibilities  to 
actual  existence.  We  do  not  understand  the 
Church  until  we  understand  this  truth.  Seen 
in  its  light  the  Christian  Church  is  nothing  in 
the  world  except  the  promise  and  prophecy 
and  picture  of  what  the  world  in  its  idea  is  and 
always  has  been,  and  in  its  completion  must 
visibly  become.  It  is  the  primary  crystalliza 
tion  of  humanity.  It  is  no  favored,  elect  body 
caught  from  the  ruin,  given  a  salvation  in 
which  the  rest  can  have  no  part.  It  is  an  at 
tempt  to  realize  the  universal  possibility.  All 
men  are  its  potential  members.  The  strange 
thing  for  any  man  is  not  that  he  should  be 
within  it,  but  that  he  should  be  without  it. 
Every  good  movement  of  any  most  secular 
sort  is  a  struggle  toward  it,  a  part  of  its  ac 
tivity.  All  the  world's  history  is  ecclesiastical 
history,  is  the  story  of  the  success  and  failure, 
the  advance  and  hindrance  of  the  ideal  human 
ity,  the  Church  of  the  living  God.  Well  may 
the  prophet  poet  greet  it,  — 

"  O  heart  of  mine,  keep  patience  ;  looking  forth 

As  from  the  Mount  of  Vision  I  behold 
Pure,  just,  and  free  the  Church  of  Christ  on  earth,— 
The  martyr's  dream,  the  golden  age  foretold." 

V.  15.  16. 


SEPTEMBER    17.  261 


J  IDLENESS  standing  in  the  midst  of  unat- 
tempted  tasks  is  always  proud.  Work  is 
always  tending  to  humility.  Work  touches 
the  keys  of  endless  activity,  opens  the  infinite, 
and  stands  awe-struck  before  the  immensity 
of  what  there  is  to  do.  Work  brings  a  man 
into  the  good  realm  of  facts.  Work  takes  the 
dreamy  youth  who  is  growing  proud  in  his 
closet  over  one  or  two  sprouting  powers  which 
he  has  discovered  in  himself,  and  sets  him  out 
among  the  gigantic  needs  and  the  vast  pro 
cesses  of  the  world,  and  makes  him  feel  his 
littleness.  Work  opens  the  measureless  fields 
of  knowledge  and  skill  that  reach  far  out  of 
sight.  I  am  sure  we  all  know  the  fine,  calm, 
sober  humbleness  of  men  who  have  really 
tried  themselves  against  the  great  tasks  of  life. 
It  was  great  in  Paul,  and  in  Luther,  and  in 
Cromwell.  It  is  something  that  never  comes 
into  the  character,  never  shows  in  the  face  of 
a  man  who  has  never  worked.  i.  34Q,  350. 

No  man  is  born  into  the  world,  whose  work 

Is  not  born  with  him  ;  there  is  always  work, 

And  tools  to  work  withal,  for  those  who  will  ; 

And  blessed  are  the  horny  hands  of  toil ! 

The  busy  world  shoves  angrily  aside 

The  man  who  stands  with  arms  akimbo  set, 

Until  occasion  tells  him  what  to  do  ; 

And  he  who  waits  to  have  his  task  marked  out 

Shall  die  and  leave  his  errand  unfulfilled. 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


262  SEPTEMBER    18. 

OHGIN  with  largeness  of  thought,  and  with 
J-*  positiveness  of  thought.  The  way  in 
which  a  man  begins  to  think  influences  all  his 
thinking  to  the  end  of  his  life.  Begin  by  seek 
ing  for  what  is  true,  not  for  what  is  false,  in  the 
thought  and  belief  which  you  find  about  you. 
Be  as  critical  as  you  will,  search  as  severely  as 
you  want  to  into  the  belief  which  offers  itself 
for  your  acceptance,  but  let  your  search  and 
criticism  always  have  for  its  purpose  that  you 
may  find  what  you  may  believe,  not  that  you 
may  find  what  you  need  not  believe.  Some 
things  which  your  first  thinking  accepts,  your 
riper  thought  may  feel  compelled  to  lay  aside  ; 
but  the  habit  of  believing  once  established  will 
not  be  lost  out  of  your  life,  and  the  young 
man's  time  is  the  time  to  make  that  habit. 
Scepticism  is  not  merely  the  disbelief  of  some 
propositions.  If  it  were  that,  there  is  not  one 
of  us  but  would  be  a  sceptic.  It  is  the  habit 
and  the  preference  of  disbelieving.  God  save 
us  all  from  that  scepticism  !  v.  101. 

Read  much,  learn  much, 

Yet  you  must  always  come  to  one  beginning  — 
I  am  He 

That  teaches  man  knowledge. 
I  give  a  clearer  understanding  to  the  little  ones 
Than  can  be  given  by  man. 
I.  even  I,  lift  even  in  a  flash  the  simple  mind 
To  understand  more  ways  of  the  eternal  truth 
Than  if  a  man  had  studied  in  the  schools  ten  years. 

THOMAS  A  KEMPIS. 


SEPTEMBER    19.  263 


The  length  and  the  breadth  and  the  height  of 
it  are  equal.  — REV.  xxi.  16. 

THE  life  which  to  its  length  and  breadth 
adds  height,  which  to  its  personal  ambi 
tion  and  sympathy  with  man  adds  the  love 
and  obedience  of  God,  completes  itself  into  the 
cube  of  the  eternal  city  and  is  the  life  com 
plete.  Think  for  a  moment  of  the  life  of  the 
great  apostle,  the  manly,  many-sided  Paul.  "  I 
press  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  my  high 
calling;  "  he  writes  to  the  Philippians.  That 
is  the  length  of  life  for  him.  "I  will  gladly 
spend  and  be  spent  for  you  ;  "  he  writes  to 
the  Corinthians.  There  is  the  breadth  of  life 
for  him.  "  God  hath  raised  us  up  and  made 
us  sit  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ 
Jesus;"  he  writes  to  the  Ephesians.  There 
is  the  height  of  life  for  him.  You  can  add 
nothing  to  these  three  dimensions  when  you 
try  to  account  to  yourself  for  the  impression  of 
completeness  which  comes  to  you  out  of  his 
simple,  lofty  story. 

Look  at  the  Lord  of  Paul.  See  how  in  Christ 
the  same  symmetrical  manhood  shines  yet  more 
complete.  See  what  intense  ambition  to  com 
plete  His  work,  what  tender  sympathy  with 
every  struggling  brother  by  His  side,  and  at  the 
same  time  what  a  perpetual  dependence  on  His 
Father  is  in  Him.  "For  this  cause  came  I 
into  the  world."  "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify 
myself."  "Now,  O  Father,  glorify  Thou 
me."  Leave  either  of  these  out,  and  you 
have  not  the  perfect  Christ,  not  the  entire 
symmetry  of  manhood.  n.  I24, 125. 


264  SEPTEMBER    20. 


'"THERE  is  a  science  of  knowledge,  as  well  as 
a  science  of  fossils,  and  a  science  of 
stars.  The  sacredness  of  all  knowledge  as  the 
gift  of  God  ;  the  unity  of  all  knowledge  as  the 
utterance  of  God  ;  the  purpose  of  all  knowledge 
as  the  food  of  character  in  the  knower  and  the 
helper  of  humanity  through  Him  —  these  are 
the  great  departments  of  that  science.  .  .  . 

Oh,  my  friends,  boys  studying  at  college, 
men  and  women  reading  hooks  and  struggling 
so  restlessly  for  culture,  there  is  no  way  to 
win  this  highest  knowledge, — the  knowledge 
of  how  to  know,  —  hut  in  the  service  of  the 
God  of  Light,  who  is  also  the  God  of  Love, 
the  God  of  Character,  the  God  of  Man.  Any 
industrious  man  with  a  good  brain  and  a  good 
memory  can  know  things  if  he  will  ;  only  the 
reverent  and  devoted  man  can  know  how  to 
knaw.  v.  i52.  i53. 


Who  loves  not  Knowledge?    Who  shall  rail 

Against  her  beauty?  .  .  . 

But  she  is  earthly,  of  the  mind, 
And  Wisdom  heavenly,  of  the  soul. 

TENNYSON 


SEPTEMBER   21.  265 


Whether  we  be  afflicted,  it  is  for  your  consola 
tion  and  salvation  :  .  .  .  or  whether  we  be  com 
forted,  it  is  for  your  consolation  and  salvation. 

II.  COR.  i.  6. 

TO  be  a  true  minister  to  men  is  always  to 
accept  new  happiness  and  new  distress, 
both  of  them  forever  deepening  and  entering 
into  closer  and  more  inseparable  union  with 
each  other  the  more  profound  and  spiritual  the 
ministry  becomes.  The  man  who  gives  him 
self  to  other  men  can  never  be  a  wholly  sad 
man ;  but  no  more  can  he  be  a  man  of 
unclouded  gladness.  To  him  shall  come  with 
every  deeper  consecration  a  before  untasted 
joy,  but  in  the  same  cup  shall  be  mixed  a 
sorrow  that  it  was  beyond  his  power  to  feel 
before.  They  who  long  to  sit  with  Jesus  on 
His  throne  may  sit  there  if  the  Father  sees 
them  pure  and  worthy,  but  they  must  be 
baptized  with  the  baptism  that  He  is  baptized 
with.  All  truly  consecrated  men  learn  little 
by  little  that  what  they  are  consecrated  to  is 
not  joy  or  sorrow,  but  a  divine  idea  and  a 
profound  obedience,  which  can  find  their  full 
outward  expression  not  in  joy,  and  not  in 
sorrow,  but  in  the  mysterious  and  inseparable 

mingling  of  the  two.  INFLUENCE,  .91.  iQ2. 


266  SEPTEMBER   22. 


TO  believe,  to  believe  alone  is  to  live.  Scep 
ticism  as  a  habit,  as  a  condition,  is  a  sign 
of  deficient  vitality.  It  is  a  vastly  nobler  fear 
which  dreads  lest  it  should  lose  some  truth  than 
that  which  trembles  lest  it  should  believe  some 
thing  which  is  not  wholly  true.  "  Seek  Truth 
and  pursue  it."  Of  course  seeking  the  Truth, 
you  will  hate  and  avoid  the  lie,  —  that  goes 
without  saying,  —  but  not  to  avoid  the  lie,  but 
to  find  the  Truth.  Scepticism  only  for  the  sake 
of  Faith, — that  is  Christ's  brave  and  healthy 

law  Of   life.  HARVARD  MONTHLY,  182. 

From  doubt,  where  all  is  double  ; 
Where  wise  men  are  not  strong, 
Where  comfort  turns  to  trouble, 
Where  just  men  suffer  wrong  ; 
Where  sorrow  treads  on  joy, 
Where  sweet  things  soonest  cloy, 
Where  faiths  are  built  on  dust, 
Where  love  is  half  mistrust, 
Hungry,  and  barren,  and  sharp  as  the  sea  — 

Oh  !  set  us  free. 
O  let  the  false  dream  fly, 
Where  our  sick  souls  do  lie 
Tossing  continually ! 
O  where  thy  voice  doth  come 
Let  all  doubts  be  dunb, 
Let  all  words  be  mild. 
All  strifes  be  reconciled, 
All  pains  beguiled  ! 
Light  bring  no  blindness, 
Love  no  unkindness, 
Knowledge  no  ruin, 
Fear  no  undoing ! 
From  the  cradle  to  the  grave 
Save,  oh  !  save. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


SEPTEMBER    23.  267 


'"THERE  is  in  you  a  power  of  loving  awe 
'  which  needs  infinite  perfection  and  mercy 
to  call  it  out  and  satisfy  it.  There  is  an  affec 
tion  which  you  cannot  exercise  towards  any 
imperfect  being.  It  is  that  mixture  of  admira 
tion  and  reverence  and  fear  and  love,  which 
we  call  worship.  ...  If  this  power  is  not 
utterly  to  die  within  you,  do  you  not  need 
God  ?  If  you  are  not  to  lose  that  highest 
reach  of  love  and  fear  where,  uniting,  they 
make  worship,  must  you  not  have  God  ?  Lo  ! 
before  this  expiring  faculty  the  personal  God 
comes  and  stands,  and  it  lifts  up  its  dying 
hands  to  reach  after  Him  ;  it  opens  its  dying 
eyes  to  look  upon  Him  ;  as  when  a  man  is 
perishing  of  starvation,  the  sight  of  bread 
summons  him  back  to  life.  He  need  not  die, 
but  live,  for  here  is  his  own  life-food  come  to 
him.  ii  I02>  I03. 

Trembling  before  Thee  we  fall  down  to  adore  Thee, 

Shamefaced  and  trembling  we  lift  our  eyes  to  Thee  : 
O  First  and  with  the  last !  annul  our  ruined  past, 
Rebuild  us  to  Thy  glory,  set  us  free 
From  sin  and  from  sorrow  to  fall  down  and  worship 

Thee. 
Full  of  pity,  view  us,  stretch  Thy  sceptre  to  us, 

Bid  us  live  that  we  may  give  ourselves  to  Thee  : 
O  Faithful  Lord  and  true !  stand  up  for  us  and  do, 

Make  us  lovely,  make  us  new,  set  us  free, 
Heart  and   soul  and  spirit  to   bring  all  and  worship 
Thee. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


268  SEPTEMBER   24. 


JOY  or  delight  in  what  we  are  doing  is  not  a 
mere  luxury  ;  it  is  a  means,  a  help  for  the 
more  perfect  doing  of  our  work.  Indeed  it  may 
be  truly  said  that  no  man  does  any  work  per 
fectly  who  does  not  enjoy  his  work.  Joy  in 
one's  work  is  the  consummate  tool  without 
which  the  work  may  be  done  indeed,  but  with 
out  which  the  work  will  always  be  done  slowly, 
clumsily,  and  without  its  finest  perfectness. 
Men  who  do  their  work  without  enjoying  it  are 
like  men  carving  statues  with  hatchets.  The 
statue  gets  carved  perhaps,  and  is  a  monument 
forever  of  the  dogged  perseverance  of  the  artist ; 
but  there  is  a  perpetual  waste  of  toil,  and  there 
is  no  fine  result  in  the  end.  H  3I 

A  man's  joy  in  what  he  has  to  do  is  the  heart 
and  soul  of  his  relation  to  it  ;  or  rather  it  is  the 
relation  of  his  heart  and  soul  to  it.  Faithfulness 
to  one's  work  may  be  only  an  outside  bondage, 
but  joy  in  it  is  a  relationship  of  heart  to  heart, 
• —  of  the  heart  of  the  man  to  the  heart  of  his 
task.  v.  325. 

Then  a  voice  that  came  not  from  moon  or  star, 
From  the  sun,  or  the  wind  roving  afar, 
Said,  "  Man,  I  am  with  thee  —  hear  my  voice." 
And  man  said,  "  I  rejoice." 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 


SEPTEMBER   25.  269 


IT  is  in  the  silences  of  Nature  that  we  are 
often  sensible  of  being  most  near  to  Nat 
ure's  heart.  Not  when  the  thunder  is  roar 
ing,  nor  when  the  winds  are  sighing,  but  in 
some  hour  of  the  morning  or  the  evening  when 
even  the  distant  song  of  a  bird  seems  an  intru 
sion,  when  the  silence  of  Nature  grows  a  trans 
parent  veil  which  reveals  and  does  not  hide 
her  loveliness,  — then  is  the  time  when  you 
know  how  lovely  Nature  is  !  v.  137.  139. 


Love,  now  an  universal  birth, 
From  heart  to  heart  is  stealing, 
From  earth  to  man,  from  man  to  earth, 
—  It  is  the  hour  of  feeling. 

One  moment  now  may  give  us  more 
Than  fifty  years  of  reason  : 
Our  minds  shall  drink  at  every  pore 
The  spirit  of  the  season. 

Some  silent  laws  our  hearts  will  make, 
Which  they  shall  long  obey  : 
We  for  the  year  to  come  may  take 
Our  temper  from  to-day. 

And  from  the  blessed  power  that  rolls 
About,  below,  above, 
We'll  frame  the  measure  of  our  souls  : 
They  shall  be  tuned  to  Love. 

WORDSWUUTH 


2/o  SEPTEMBER   26. 


O1LENCE  has  as  various  moods  as  speech, 
and  its  moods  are  far  more  subtle.  .  .  . 
The  completest  joy  and  the  profoundest  sorrow, 
both  are  silent.  It  is  as  different  in  men  as  it  is 
in  Nature.  There  is  the  silence  of  sunrise,  all 
tremulous  with  hope,  and  the  silence  of  sunset, 
wrapped  in  the  stillness  of  its  memories.  There- 
is  the  stillness  of  the  snake  slipping  unseen 
through  the  grass,  the  silence  of  the  war-horse 
waiting  for  the  signal  of  the  battle.  How  dif 
ferent  they  are  from  one  another,  yet  all  alike 
are  silent.  v.  125 

What  is  the  saddest,  sweetest,  lowest  sound 
Nearest  akin  to  perfect  silence?     Not 
The  delicate  whisper  sometimes  in  the  hot 

Autumnal  morning  heard  the  cornfields  round  ; 

Nor  yet  to  lonely  man,  now  almost  bound 
By  slumber,  near  his  house  a  murmuring  river 
Buz/ing  and  droning  o'er  the  shores  for  ever. 

Not  such  faint  voice  of  Autumn  oat-en  crowned, 

And  not  such  liquid  murmur,  O  my  heart ! 
But  tears  that  drop  o'er  graves,  and  sins,  and  fears, 
A  sound  the  very  weeper  scarcely  hears, 

A  music  in  which  silence  hath  some  part. 

—  O  Thou,  all  gentle,  Who  all-hearing  art, 

Hold  not  Thy  peace,  sweet  Saviour,  at  my  tears  ! 

WILLIAM  ALEXANDER. 


SEPTEMBER    27.  271 


T  NEVER  think  of  the  silences  of  God  with 
out  thinking  how  great  is  the  delight 
which  comes  when  any  man  discovers  that 
God  re-ally  has  been  answering  him  all  the 
time  when  he  thought  that  his  prayers  were 
all  unheard.  That  must  be  one  of  the  most 
exquisite  joys  of  heaven.  Among  the  vials 
which  in  the  Book  of  Revelation  held  the 
prayers  of  saints,  there  must  be  some  which, 
when  the  saints  who  prayed  them  find  them 
in  their  vision-time,  shine  with  a  brilliancy 
supremely  precious.  They  are  the  prayers 
which  seemed  as  if  they  were  not  answered, 
but  which  really  did  bring  down  their  blessing. 

V.  132. 


Wilt  thou  not  ope  the  heart  to  know 

What  rainbows  teach,  and  sunsets  show? 

Verdict  which  accumulates 

From  lengthening  scroll  of  human  fates, 

Voice  of  earth  to  earth  returned, 

Prayers  of  saints  that  inly  burned,  - 

Saying  :  —  What  is  excellent, 

As  God  lives  is  permanent  ; 

Hearts  are  dust,  hearts'  loves  remain. 

Heart's  love  will  meet  thee  again. 

KMERSON. 


272  SEPTEMBER  28. 

'T'HE     suffering    Saviour    inly     known,    and 

*  through  His  wounds  letting  out  His  life 
into  the  starved  lives  of  those  who  hold  Him 
fast,  that  is  the  Gospel.     It  is  not  what  church 
you  belong  to  or  what  work  you  do,  but  what 
you  know  of,  how  deeply  you  are  fed  by  Him 

-  the  suffering  Saviour.     That  is  the  question 
for  the  soul. 

Before  His  cross  the  lesson  must  be  learned. 
Stand  there  until  you  are  grateful  through  and 
through  for  such  a  love  so  marvellously  shown. 
Let  gratitude  open  your  life  to  receive  His 
Spirit ;  let  it  make  you  long  and  try  to  be  like 
Him  ;  let  love  bring  Him  into  you  so  that  you 
shall  do  His  will  because  you  have  His  heart. 
That  entrance  of  His  life  into  you  shall  give 
you  strength  and  nourishment  you  never  knew 
before.  n  25I. 

When  temptation  sore  is  rife, 
When  we  faint  amidst  the  strife, 
Thou,  whose  death  hath  been  our  life, 
Save  us,  Holy  Jesu. 

While  on  stormy  seas  we  toss, 
Let  us  count  all  things  but  loss, 
But  Thee  only  on  Thy  Cross  : 

Save  us,  Holy  Jesu. 

So,  with  hope  in  Thee  made  fast, 
When  death's  bitterness  is  past 
We  may  see  Thy  Face  at  last : 

Save  us,  Holy  Jesu. 

LITANY  OF  THE  PASSION. 


SEPTEMBER    29.  273 


Seraphic  intellect  and  force 

To  seize  and  throw  the  doubts  of  man  ; 

Impassion'd  logic,  which  outran 
The  hearer  in  its  fiery  course ; 

High  nature  amorous  of  the  good, 
But  touch'd  with  no  ascetic  gloom  ; 
And  passion  pure  in  snowy  bloom 

Thro'  all  the  years  of  April  blood  ; 

And  manhood  fused  with  female  grace 
In  such  a  sort,  the  child  would  twine 
A  trustful  hand,  unask'd,  in  thine, 

And  find  his  comfort  in  thy  face  ; 

All  these  have  been,  and  tliee  mine  eyes 
Have  look'd  on  :  if  they  look'd  in  vain, 
My  shame  is  greater  who  remain, 

Nor  let  thy  wisdom  make  me  wise. 

TENNYSON. 

THESE  are  the  qualities  which  we  have  seen 
in  the  choice  young  man,  —  purity  of 
body,  mind,  and  soul ;  simple  integrity,  and  a 
dignity  which  will  not  have  what  is  not  his,  no 
matter  under  what  specious  form  of  game  or 
wager  it  has  come  into  his  hands ;  tenderness, 
sympathy,  sentiment,  —  call  it  what  name  you 
will,  a  soul  that  is  not  cynical,  or  cruel ;  and 
positive,  broad  thought  and  conviction.  .  .  . 
It  is  always  sad  not  to  feel  the  choiceness  of 
anything  which  has  in  it  wonderful  and  fine 
capacities,  —  to  be  content  with  the  ordinari 
ness  and  coarseness  of  that  which  is  capable 
of  being  exquisite  and  great.  Oh,  that  there 
could  thrill  through  the  being  of  our  young 
men  some  electrical  sense  that  they  are  God's 
sons,  that  so  they  might  make  themselves  the 
servants  of  His  Christ,  and  live  the  life  and 
attain  the  nature  which  are  rightly  theirs. 

V.    IO2,    ID;. 


274  SEPTEMBER    30. 

Give  attendance  to  reading,  to  exhortation,  to 
doctrine.  .  .  .  Take  heed  unto  thyself ,  and  unto  the 
doctrine  ;  continue  in  them  :  for  in  doing  this  thou 
shalt  both  save  thyself,  and  them  tliat  hear  thee. 

I.  TIM.  iv.  13,  16. 

'""THE  truth  is,  no  preaching  ever  had  any 
*•  strong  power  that  was  not  the  preaching 
of  doctrine.  The  preachers  that  have  moved 
and  held  men  have  always  preached  doctrine. 
No  exhortation  to  a  good  life  that  does  not  put 
behind  it  some  truth  as  deep  as  eternity  can 
seize  and  hold  the  conscience.  Preach  doc 
trine,  preach  all  the  doctrine  that  you  know, 
and  learn  forever  more  and  more  ;  but  preach 
it  always,  not  that  men  may  believe  it,  but 
that  men  may  be  saved  by  believing  it.  So  it 
shall  be  live,  not  dead.  So  men  shall  rejoice 
in  it  and  not  decry  it.  So  they  shall  feed  on  it 
at  your  hands  as  on  the  bread  of  life,  solid  and 
sweet,  and  claiming  for  itself  the  appetite  of 
man  which  God  made  for  it.  PREACHING,^. 

To  decry  dogma  in  the  interest  of  character, 
is  like  despising  food  as  if  it  interfered  with 
health.  Food  is  not  health.  The  human  body 
is  built  just  so  as  to  turn  food  into  health  and 
strength.  And  truth  is  not  holiness.  The 
human  soul  is  made  to  turn,  by  the  subtle 
chemistry  of  its  digestive  experience,  truth 
into  goodness.  And  this,  I  think,  is  just  what 
the  Christian,  as  he  goes  on,  finds  himself  do 
ing  under  God's  grace.  n.  45. 


OCTOBER    i.  275 


T  S  it  success  in  the  struggle  of  life  simply  to  get 
1  through  with  decency  and  die  without  dis 
grace  or  shame  ?  Is  it  success  in  the  struggle  of 
life  just  to  have  so  laid  hold  on  God's  mercy, 
to  have  so  made  our  peace  with  Him,  that  we 
know  we  shall  not  he  punished  for  our  sins  ?  Is 
it  success  in  the  struggle  of  life  even  to  have  so 
lived  in  His  presence  that  every  day  has  been 
bright  with  the  sense  that  He  was  taking  care  of 
us  ?  These  things  are  very  good  ;  but  if  the 
purpose  of  God's  government  of  the  world  and 
of  us  is  what  I  said,  then  the  real  victory  in  the 
struggle  can  be  nothing  less  than  the  accom 
plishment  in  us  of  that  which  it  is  the  object  of 
all  His  government  to  accomplish  in  the  world. 
When,  truly  obedient,  we  have  been  made  like 
Him  whom  we  obey,  then,  only  then,  we  have 
overcome  in  the  struggle  of  life.  n.  70(  7I- 


And  will  not,  then,  the  immortal  armies  scorn 
The  world's  poor,  routed  leavings?  or  will  they, 
Who  fail'd  under  the  heat  of  this  life's  day, 
Support  the  fervors  of  the  heavenly  morn  ? 
No,  no  !  the  energy  of  life  may  be 
Kept  on  after  the  grave,  but  not  begun  ! 
And  he  who  flagg'd  not  in  the  earthly  strife, 
From  strength  to  strength  advancing  —  only  he, 
His  soul  well-knit,  and  all  his  battles  won, 
Mounts,  and  that  hardly,  to  eternal  life. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


276  OCTOBER    2. 


The  light  will  never  open  sightless  eyes, 

It  comes  to  those  who  willingly  would  see  : 

And  every  object  —  hill,  and  stream,  and  skies  — 

Rejoice  within  th'  encircling  line  to  be. 

'Tis  day  —  the  field  is  tilled  with  busy  hands, 

The  shop  resounds  with  noisy  workmen's  din, 

The  traveler  with  his  staff  already  stands 

His  yet  unmeasured  journey  to  begin  ; 

The  light  breaks  gently,  too,  within  the  breast,  — 

Yet  there  no  eye  awaits  the  crimson  morn, 

The  forge  and  noisy  anvil  are  at  rest, 

Nor  men  nor  oxen  tread  the  fields  of  corn, 

Nor  pilgrim  lifts  his  staff,  —  it  is  no  day 

To  those  who  find  on  earth  their  place  to  stay. 

JONES  VERY. 

THE  spiritual  nature  of  the  world  ;  that  all 
this  mass  of  things  and  events  is  fitted  for 
and  naturally  struggles  towards  the  education 
of  character ;  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  ;  .  .  . 
and  God  ;  .  .  .  these  are  the  before  un 
seen  realities  which  come  pressing  into  your 
intelligence,  tempting,  demanding  your  recog 
nition  when  your  conscience  is  once  open,  when 
you  have  once  begun  to  live  in  the  desire  and 
struggle  to  do  right.  Do  you  not  see  then  what 
1  mean  when  1  say  that  the  conscience  stands 
between  man's  power  of  knowledge  and  the 
spiritual  world,  just  as  the  eye  stands  between 
man's  power  of  knowledge  and  the  world  of 
visible  nature.  It  is  the  opened  or  unopened 
window  through  which  flows  the  glorious 
knowledge  of  God  and  heaven  ;  or  outside  of 
which  that  knowledge  waits,  as  the  sun  with 
its  glory  or  the  flower  with  its  beauty  waits 
outside  the  closed  eye  of  a  blind  or  sleeping 
man.  n.  so.  8i. 


OCTOBER    3.  277 

THE  things  that  are  spiritual  bring  their  own 
sidelong  testimonies  of  themselves.  They 
touch  my  sense  of  beauty.  They  make  me 
feel  how  good  it  would  be  for  the  world  if  they 
were  true.  I  hear  their  movement  in  the 
depths  of  history.  .  .  .  Yet  there  stands  the 
separate  glory  of  the  revelation  of  that  day 
when  to  me,  at  last  beginning  to  try  to  do 
right,  the  God  whose  faint  reports  have  come 
to  me  pours  in  upon  my  opened  soul  the  glori 
ous  conviction  of  His  righteousness  and  love; 
and  my  soul,  in  which  I  have  half  believed, 
becomes  the  centre  of  my  life ;  becomes  my 
life,  that  for  which  all  the  other  parts  of  me  are 
made.  Then,  in  the  knowledge  which  pours 
through  my  opened  conscience,  then  I  know 
with  an  assurance  which  makes  all  the  knowl 
edge  that  I  had  before  seem  but  a  guess  and 
dim  suspicion.  n.  g2. 

Ah,  there  is  something  here 
Unfathomed  by  the  cynic's  sneer. 
Something  that  gives  our  feeble  light 
A  high  immunity  from  Night, 
Something  that  leaps  life's  narrow  bars 
To  claim  its  birthright  with  the  hosts  of  heaven ; 

A  conscience  more  divine  than  we, 
A  gladness  fed  with  secret  teats, 
A  vexing,  forward-reaching  sense 
Of  some  more  noble  permanence ; 

A  light  across  the  sea, 

Which  haunts  the  soul  and  will  not  let  it  be, 
Still   glimmering  from    the    heights  of    undegenerate 
years. 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


278  OCTOBER   4. 


Mine  eves  hare  seen  tlie  A'i/ig,  the  f.t>n/<>f  Jlosts. 

Is.  vi.  5. 

WHEN  one  declares  that  through  the  con 
science  man  arrives  at  the  knowledge 
of  unseen  things,  and  conceptions  of  God  and 
spiritual  force  and  immortality  reveal  themselves 
to  the  intelligence,  at  once  the  suggestion  conies 
from  some  one  who  is  listening,  "  Can  we  be 
sure  of  the  reality  of  what  thus  seems  to 
he  made  known  ?  How  can  we  he  sure  that 
what  the  conscience  sends  in  to  the  understand 
ing  are  not  mere  creations  of  its  own  ;  things 
which  it  thinks  exist  because  it  seems  to  need 
them  ;  mere  forms  in  which  it  has  been  led  to 
clothe  with  outward  and  substantial  life  its  own 
emotions?"  .  .  .  Are  not  then  the  questions 
which  haunt  the  conscience  the  same  as  those 
which  haunt  the  eye  ?  And  as  the  eye  deals 
with  its  questions,  so  will  the  conscience  always 
deal  with  its.  A  conviction  of  the  reality  of 
what  it  sees,  which  is  a  part  of  its  consciousness 
that  no  suspicion  can  disturb  ;  a  use  of  its 
knowledge,  which  brings  ever  a  more  and  more 
complete  assurance  of  its  trustworthiness,  - 
these  are  the  practical  issue  of  every  such 
question  with  regard  to  what  the  brain  sees 
through  the  eye ;  and  the  same  will  be  the 
practical  issue  of  every  question  with  regard  to 
what  the  soul  sees  through  the  conscience.  At 
least  we  may  say  this,  that  it  would  be  a  very 
deep  confidence  indeed  if  the  soul  felt  as  sure  of 
God  as  the  mind  feels  of  nature.  n.  s2>  &*. 


OCTOBER  5.  279 

Looking  unto  Jesus,  the  author  and  finisher  of 
our  faith  ;  who,  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before 
Him,  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame,  and 
is  set  down  at  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  God. 

HEB.  xii.   2. 

A  S  Jesus  was,  so  may  we  be,  seeking  an  end 
so  great,  so  constant,  so  eternal  that 
every  change  may  come  to  us  and  be  our 
minister  and  not  our  conqueror  ;  that  even  our 
cross  may  come  as  His  came,  and  men  may 
gather  round  it  and  say,  "  Alas,  then  this  is 
all  !  Alas,  that  finally  it  should  all  come  to 
this!  "  While  we  who  hang  upon  the  cross 
cry,  "  It  is  finished,"  with  a  shout  of  triumph, 
counting  the  finishing  but  a  new  beginning, 
and  looking  out  beyond  the  cross  to  richer 
growth  in  character,  and  braver  and  more 
fruitful  service  of  our  Lord  !  v.  372,  373. 

Was  it  not  great?  did  he  not  throw  on  God, 

(He  loves  the  burthen)  — 
God's  task  to  make  the  heavenly  period 

Perfect  the  earthen  ? 

He  ventured  neck  or  nothing  —  heaven's  success 

Found,  or  earth's  failure  : 
!'  Wilt  thou  trust  death  or  not  ?  "  He  answered,  "  Yes. 

Hence  with  life's  pale  lure." 


28o  OCTOBER  6. 


EVERY  emotion  has  its  higher  and  its  lower 
forms.  It  means  but  little  to  me  if  I  know 
only  that  a  man  is  happy  or  unhappy,  if  I  do 
not  know  of  what  sort  his  joy  or  sorrow  is. 
But  all  the  emotions  are  certainly  tempted  to 
larger  action  if  it  is  realized  that  the  world  in 
which  they  take  their  birth  is  but  for  a  little 
time,  that  its  fashion  passes  away,  that  the  cir 
cumstances  of  an  experience  are  very  transitory. 
That  must  drive  me  down  into  the  essence  of 
every  experience,  and  make  me  realize  it  in  the 
prof oundest  and  the  largest  way.  .  .  .  (Our  grief 
exalted  to  its  largest  form)  grows  unselfish.  It  is 
perfectly  consistent  with  a  triumphant  thankful 
ness  for  the  dear  soul  that  has  entered  into  rest 
and  glory.  It  dwells  not  on  the  circumstances 
of  bereavement,  but  upon  that  mysterious  strain 
in  which  love  has  been  stretched  from  this  world 
to  the  other,  and,  amid  all  the  pain  that  the  ten 
sion  brings,  is  still  aware  of  joy  at  the  new 
knowledge  of  its  own  capacities  which  has  been 
given  it.  i.  325, 32e. 

My  love  involves  the  love  before ; 

My  love  is  vaster  passion  now  ; 

Tho'  mixed  with  God  and  Nature  thou, 
1  seem  to  love  thee  more  and  more. 

Far  off  thou  art,  but  ever  nigh  ; 

I  have  thee  still,  and  I  rejoice  ; 

I  prosper,  circled  with  thy  voice  ; 
I  shall  not  lose  thee  thor  I  die. 

TENNYSON. 


OCTOBER  7.  281 


CHRIST  comes  and  puts  His  essential  life  into 
our  human  form.  In  that  form  He  claims 
the  truest  brotherhood  with  us.  He  shares  our 
lot.  He  binds  His  life  with  ours  so  that  they 
never  can  be  separated.  What  He  is  we  must 
be ;  what  we  are,  He  must  be  forever.  Finally 
by  the  cross  of  love,  He  entering  into  our  death 
takes  us  completely  into  His  life.  And  when 
He  had  done  all  this  He  rose.  Out  of  His  tomb, 
standing  there  among  human  tombs,  He  comes, 
and  lo,  before  Him  there  rolls  on  the  unbroken 
endlessness  of  Being.  And  not  before  Him 
alone,  —  before  those  also  whom  He  had  taken 
so  completely  to  Himself.  His  resurrection 
makes  our  resurrection  sure.  Our  earthly  life, 
like  His,  becomes  an  episode,  a  short,  special, 
temporary  thing,  when  it  is  seen  like  His  against 
an  immortality.  i.  33I 

Earth  breaks  up,  time  drops  away, 

In  flows  Heaven,  with  its  new  day 

Of  endless  life,  when  He  who  trod, 

Very  Man  and  very  God, 

This  earth  in  weakness,  shame  and  pain, 

Dying  the  death  whose  signs  remain, 

Up  yonder  on  the  accursed  tree,  — 

Shall  come  again,  no  more  to  be 

Of  captivity  the  thrall, 

But  the  one  God,  All  in  all, 

King  of  kings,  Lord  of  lords, 

As  His  servant  John  received  the  words, 

"  I  died,  and  live  forevermore  !  " 

BROWNING. 


282  OCTOBER   8 


'"THERE  is  somewhere  in  the  human  mind  an 
*•  image  of  human  character  in  which  all 
wayward  impulses  are  restrained,  not  by  out 
side  compulsion,  but  by  the  firm  grasp  of  a 
power  which  holds  everything  into  obedience 
from  within  by  the  central  purpose  of  the  life. 
This  character  dreads  fury  and  excitement  as 
signs  of  feebleness.  It  shrinks  from  self-dis 
play  just  in  proportion  as  it  accepts  the  re 
sponsibilities  of  selfhood.  It  is  patient  because 
it  is  powerful.  It  is  tolerant  because  it  is  sure. 
It  is  this  character,  I  think,  which  St.  Paul 
calls  by  his  great  word  moderation.  It  is  self- 
possession.  It  is  the  self  found  and  possessed 
in  God.  It  is  the  sweet  reasonableness  which 
was  in  Jesus.  lv.  367,  36s. 

Whose  high  endeavors  are  an  inward  light 
That  makes  the  path  before  him  always  bright : 

More  skilful  in  self-knowledge,  even  more  pure, 
As  tempted  more  ;  more  able  to  endure, 
As  more  exposed  to  suffering  and  distress ; 
Thence,  also,  more  alive  to  tenderness. 

But  who,  if  lie  be  called  upon  to  face 

Some  awful  moment  to  which  Heaven  has  joined 

Great  issues,  good  or  bad  for  human  kind, 

Is  happy  as  a  lover;  and  attired 

With  sudden  brightness,  like  a  man  inspired  ; 

And,  through  the  heat  of  conflict,  keeps  the  law 

In  calmness  made,  and  sees  what  he  foresaw; 

Or  if  an  unexpected  call  succeed, 

Come  when  it  will,  is  equal  to  the  need. 

WORDSWORTH 


OCTOBER   9.  283 


T  N  our  own  little  sphere,  it  is  not  the  most 
*  active  people  to  whom  we  owe  the  most. 
Among  the  common  people  whom  we  know 
it  is  not  necessarily  those  who  are  busiest,  not 
those  who,  meteor-like,  are  ever  on  the  rush 
after  some  visible  change  and  work.  It  is  the 
lives,  like  the  stars,  which  simply  pour  down 
on  us  the  calm  light  of  their  bright  and  faithful 
being,  up  to  which  we  look  and  out  of  which 
we  gnther  the  deepest  calm  and  courage. 

1. 105 

QUIET  WORK. 

One  lesson,  Nature,  let  me  learn  of  thee, 
One  lesson,  which  in  every  wind  is  blown, 
One  lesson  of  two  duties  kept  at  one, 
Though  the  loud  \vorld  proclaim  their  enmity  — 

Of  toil  unsever'd  from  tranquillity  ! 
Of  labor,  that  in  lasting  fruit  outgrows 
Far  noisier  schemes,  accomplish'd  in  repose  — 
Too  great  for  haste,  too  high  for  rivalry  ! 

Yes,  while  on  earth  a  thousand  discords  ring, 
Man's  senseless  uproar  mingling  with  his  toil, 
Still  do  thy  quiet  ministers  move  on, 

Their  glorious  tasks  in  silence  perfecting ! 
Still  working,  blaming  still  our  vain  turmoil, 
Laborers  tnat  shall  not  fail,  when  man  is  gone. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


284  OCTOBER    10. 


OOLITUDE  makes  the  consciousness  ;  so- 
^  ciety  develops,  multiplies,  and  confirms 
it.  That  which  would  have  remained  only 
a  quality  in  Jesus,  if  He  had  stayed  in  the 
desert,  becomes" a  life  when  He  goes  forth  into 
the  world.  What  Goethe  wisely  says  of  all 
men  does  not  lose  its  truth  when  we  are  think 
ing  of  the  Son  of  Man  :  "A  talent  shapes  itself 
in  stillness,  but  a  character  in  the  tumult  of 
the  world."  This  is  Christ's  balance  between 
solitude  and  society.  Each  makes  the  other 
necessary.  With  us  they  often  lose  this 
value,  because  they  are  not  set  in  any  relation 
to  each  other.  Solitude  is  barren,  and  so  so 
ciety  is  frivolous.  Solitude  creates  no  con 
sciousness  for  society  to  ripen.  Solitude  is 
like  an  unfertile  seed,  and  society  is  like  an 

implanted    ground.  INFLUENCE.  ,05,  ,06. 

By  all  means  use  sometimes  to  be  alone. 

Salute  thyself:  see  what  thy  soul  doth  wear. 

Dare  to  look  in  thy  chest ;  for  'tis  thine  own  : 

And  tumble  up  and  down  what  thou  find'st  there. 
Who  cannot  rest  till  he  good  fellows  find, 
He  breaks  up  house,  turns  out  of  doors  his  mind. 

GEORGE  HERBERT. 

Open  innumerable  doors 
To  heaven  where  unveiled  Allah  pours 
The  flood  of  truth,  the  flood  of  good, 
The  Seraph's  and  the  Cherub's  food. 
Those  doors  are  men  :  the  Pariah  hind 
Admits  thee  to  the  perfect  Mind. 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 


OCTOBER  ii.  285 


Grace  and  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ. 

JOHN  i.  17. 

IF  you  look  back  to  the  men  who  have  taught 
you  most,  and  in  the  fuller  light  where  you 
now  stand,  study  their  character,  you  will 
surely  find  that  the  real  secret  of  their  power 
lay  here,  in  the  harmonious  blending  of  the 
knowing  and  the  loving  powers  in  their  nature  ; 
in  the  opening  of  their  nature  on  both  sides, 
so  that  truth  entered  in  freely  here  and  you 
entered  in  freely  there,  and  you  and  truth 
met,  as  it  were,  familiarly  in  the  hospitality 
of  their  great  characters.  The  man  who  has 
only  the  knowing  power  active,  lets  truth  in, 
but  it  finds  no  man  to  feed.  The  man  who 
has  only  the  loving  power  active,  lets  man  in, 
but  he  finds  no  truth  to  feed  on.  The  real 
teacher  welcomes  both.  .  .  Grace  and  Truth  ! 
These  are  exactly  the  two  elements  of  which 
we  have  been  speaking,  and  it  must  have  been 
in  the  perfect  meeting  of  those  two  elements 
in  Jesus  that  His  mediatorship,  His  power  to 
transmute  the  everlasting  truths  of  God  into 
the  immediate  help  of  needy  men  consisted. 
He  was  no  rapt  self-centred  student  of  the 
abstract  truth  ;  nor  was  he  the  merely  ready 
sentimental  pitier  of  the  woes  of  men.  But  in 
His  whole  nature  there  was  finely  wrought 
and  combined  the  union  of  the  abstract  and 
eternal  with  the  special  and  the  personal. 

IV.     10,     12. 


286  OCTOBER    12. 


One  poor  day!  — 

Remember  whose  and  not  how  short  it  is  ! 
It  is  God's  day,  it  is  Columbus's. 
A  lavish  day  !     One  day,  with  life  and  heart, 

Is  more  than  time  enough  to  find  a  world. 

JAMES  RUSSKLL  LOWELL. 

E  year  God  lifted  the  curtain  from  a  hidden 
continent,  and  gave  His  children  a  whole 
new  world  in  which  to  carry  out  His  purposes. 
Another  year  He  revealed  to  them  a  strange, 
simple  little  invention  which  made  the  treasured 
knowledge  of  the  few  to  be  the  free  heritage  of 
all.  Another  year  He  touched  the  solid  frame 
of  a  great  spiritual  despotism,  and  it  trembled 
and  quaked,  and  thousands  of  its  slaves  came 
forth  free  men.  Another  year,  in  our  own  time, 
in  our  own  land,  He  sent  the  message  of  liberty 
to  a  nation  of  bondmen,  and  the  fetters  fell  off 
from  their  limbs.  We  call  these  events  of  his 
tory.  They  have  a  right  to  be  called  the  com 
ings  of  the  Lord.  They  all  are  echoes  and 
illustrations  of  that  great  coming  of  the  Lord 
from  which  they  who  have  known  of  it  agree 
by  instinctive  consent  to  date  their  history,  the 
birth  of  the  child  of  Bethlehem,  the  Man  of 
Nazareth  and  Calvary  into  the  world. 

IV.  363,  364- 


OCTOBER    13.  287 

"  DRETHREN,  the  time  is  short."  There 
D  is  the  fact,  then,  forever  pressing  on 
us,  and  these  are  the  consequences  which  it 
ought  to  bring  to  those  who  feel  its  pressure. 
Behold,  it  is  no  dreary  shadow  hanging  above 
our  heads  and  shutting  out  the  sunshine.  It 
is  an  everlasting  inspiration.  It  makes  a  man 
know  himself  and  his  career.  It  makes  him 
put  his  heart  into  the  heart  of  the  career 
which  he  knows  to  be  his.  It  makes  the 
emotions  and  experiences  of  life  great  and 
not  petty  to  him.  It  makes  life  solemn  and 
interesting  with  criticalness ;  and  it  makes 
friendship  magnanimous,  and  the  desire  to 
help  our  fellow-men  real  and  energetic.  It 
concentrates  and  invigorates  our  lives.  In  the 
brightest,  freshest,  clearest  mornings,  it  comes 
to  us  not  as  a  cloud,  not  as  a  paralysis,  but 
as  a  new  brightness  in  the  sunshine  and  a 
new  vigor  in  the  arm.  "  Brethren,  the  time 
is  short."  Only  remember  the  shortness  of 
life  is  not  a  reality  to  us,  except  as  it  shows 
itself  against  a  true  realization  of  eternity. 

i.  330. 

Up,  my  drowsing  eyes ! 

Up,  my  sinking  heart ! 
Up  to  Jesus  Christ  arise  ! 

Claim  your  part 
In  all  rapture  of  the  skies. 

Yet  a  little  while, 

Yet  a  little  way, 
Saints  shall  reap  and  rest  and  smile 

All  the  day  :  — • 
Up!  let's  trudge  another  mile. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


288  OCTOBER  14. 


Phillips  Brooks  consecrated  Bishop,  i8gi . 

'"THE  SHEPHERD  OF  THE  PEOPLE  !  He  fed 
*•  us  faithfully  and  truly.  He  fed  us  with 
counsel  when  we  were  in  doubt,  with  inspira 
tion  when  we  sometimes  faltered,  with  caution 
when  we  would  be  rash,  with  calm,  clear, 
trustful  cheerfulness  through  many  an  hour 
when  our  hearts  were  dark.  He  fed  hungry 
souls  all  over  the  country  with  sympathy  and 
consolation.  He  spread  before  the  whole  land 
feasts  of  great  duty  and  devotion  and  patriot 
ism,  on  which  the  land  grew  strong.  He  fed 
us  with  solemn,  solid  truths.  ...  He  made 
our  souls  glad  and  vigorous  with  the  love  of 
liberty  that  was  in  his.  He  showed  us  how  to 
love  truth  and  yet  be  charitable  — how  to  hate 
wrong  and  all  oppression,  and  yet  not  treasure 
one  personal  injury  or  insult.  ...  He  spread 
before  us  the  love  and  fear  of  God  just  in  that 
shape  in  which  we  need  them  most,  and  out  of 
his  faithful  service  of  a  higher  Master  who  of 
us  has  not  taken  and  eaten  and  grown  strong  ? 

SERMON  ON  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Therefore  to  thee  it  was  given 
Many  to  save  with  thyself  ; 
And,  at  the  end  of  thy  day, 
O  faithful  shepherd  !  to  come, 
Bringing  thy  sheep  in  thy  hand. 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD 


OCTOBER    15.  289 


/CHRISTIANITY,  or  the  change  of  man's  life 
by  Christ,  has  three  different  aspects  in 
which  it  appears  —  three  ways  in  which  it  makes 
its  power  known.  It  appears  either  as  Truth, 
as  Righteousness,  or  as  Love.  Every  soul 
which  is  really  redeemed  by  Christ  will  enter 
into  new  beliefs,  higher  ways  of  action,  and 
deeper  affections  towards  fellow-men.  .  .  . 
All  spiritual  character  must  reside  ultimately  in 
single  souls  ;  but  still  I  think  that  it  is  mani 
festly  true  that  an  aggregate  of  individuals  may 
possess  in  its  own  peculiar  way  the  spiritual 
character  which  the  individual  possesses,  and  a 
city,  like  a  man,  have  and  exhibit  Christian 
faith  and  Christian  righteousness  and  Christian 
love.  1U.  139>  140. 


I  dream'd  in  a  dream  I  saw  a  city  invincible  to  the  at 
tacks  of  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  earth, 

I  dream'd  that  was  the  new  city  of  Friends, 

Nothing  was  greater  there  than  the  quality  of  robust 
love,  it  led  the  rest, 

It  was  seen  every  hour  in  the  actions  of  the  men  of  that 
city, 

And  in  all  their  looks  and  words. 

WALT  WHITMAN 


290  OCTOBER  16. 


You're  ray  friend  — 

What  a  thing  friendship  is,  world  without  end  ! 

How  it  gives  the  heart  and  soul  a  stir-up, 

As  if  somebody  broached  you  a  glorious  runlet ! 

BROWNING. 

HTHERE  is  nothing  so  bad  for  man  or  woman 
1  as  to  live  always  with  their  inferiors.  It  is 
a  truth  so  important,  that  one  might  well  wish 
to  turn  aside  a  moment  and  urge  it,  even  in  its 
lower  aspects,  upon  the  young  people  who  are 
just  making  their  associations  and  friendships. 
Many  a  temptation  of  laziness  or  pride  induces 
us  to  draw  towards  those  who  do  not  know  as 
much  or  are  not  in  some  way  as  strong  as  we 
are.  It  is  a  smaller  tax  upon  our  powers  to  be 
in  their  society.  But  it  is  bad  for  us.  1  am 
sure  that  1  have  known  men,  intellectually 
and  morally  very  strong,  the  whole  develop 
ment  of  whose  intellectual  and  moral  life  has 
suffered  and  been  dwarfed,  because  they  have 
only  accompanied  with  their  inferiors,  because 
they  have  not  lived  with  men  greater  than 
themselves.  Whatever  else  they  lose,  they 
surely  must  lose  some  culture  of  humility.  If 
I  could  choose  a  young  man's  companions, 
some  should  be  weaker  than  himself,  that  he 
might  learn  patience  and  charity  ;  many  should 
be  as  nearly  as  possible  his  equals,  that  he 
might  have  the  full  freedom  of  friendship  ;  but 
most  should  be  stronger  than  he  was,  that  he 
might  forever  be  thinking  humbly  of  himself 
and  be  tempted  to  higher  things.  i.  339>  34(,. 


OCTOBER    17.  291 

IF  in  doing  (your  work),  the  principal  bless 
ing  of  it  all  was  that  it  permitted  you  to 
look  into  God's  soul  and  see  how  self-complete 
and  perfect  and  supreme  He  was ;  how,  after 
all  His  workings,  it  was  not  in  His  works  but  in 
His  nature,  not  in  His  doing  but  in  His  being, 
that  God's  true  glory  lay  ;  if  as  you  worked 
with  Him,  you  really  looked  into  His  nature 
and  discerned  all  this,  —  then  when  He  takes 
your  work  away  and  bids  you  no  longer  to  do 
good  and  obedient  things  but  only  to  be  good 
and  obedient,  surely  that  is  not  the  death  of 
faith.  That  may  be  faith's  transfiguration. 

V.  322. 

Lord,  I  had  planned  to  do  Thee  service  true, 
To  be  more  humbly  watchful  unto  prayer, 
More  faithful  in  obedience  to  Thy  Word, 
More  bent  to  put  away  all  earthly  care. 

I  thought  of  sad  hearts  comforted  and  healed, 
Of  wanderers  turned  into  the  pleasant  way, 
Of  little  ones  preserved  from  sinful  snare, 
Of  dark  homes  brightened  with  a  heavenly  ray  ; 

Of  time  all  consecrated  to  Thy  Will, 
Of  strength  spent  gladly  for  Thee,  day  by  day,  — 
When  suddenly  the  heavenly  mandate  came, 
That  1  should  give  it  all,  at  once,  away. 

And  was  it  loss,  to  have  indulged  such  hopes? 
Nay,  they  were  gifts,  from  out  the  Inner  Shrine,  — 
Garlands,  that  I  might  hang  about  Thy  Cross, 
Gems,  to  surrender  at  the  call  Divine. 

CAROLINE  M.  NOEL. 


292  OCTOBER    18. 


Luke  the  beloved  physician. — Cor,,  iv.   14. 

MAY  we  not  say  this  of  the  two  works 
(theology  and  medicine),  that,  first, 
they  above  all  others  demand,  as  of  funda 
mental  importance,  character  in  the  men  who 
do  them ;  and  that,  second,  the  element  of 
merciful  feeling  and  readiness  for  self-sacrifice 
which  are  incidental  to  most  other  occupations 
are  essential  and  indispensable  in  these  two  ? 
These  are  what  really  mark  how  divine  they 
are,  and  how  they  belong  together.  .  .  . 
1  add  to  this  that  both  live  constantly  in  the 
immediate  presence  of  awful  and  mysterious 
forces  ;  that  both  are  always,  while  they  see 
before  them  human  need,  feeling  behind  them 
that  which,  call  it  by  what  name  they  will, 
is  Divine  Power  —  is  God  ;  and  so  are  always 
pressed  on  by  the  demand  for  reverence  and 
piety. 

1  add  again  that  while  each  has  its  imme 
diate  appeal  to  make  to  terror  and  the  fear  of 
pain,  the  ultimate  address  of  each  must  be 
to  ardent  courage  and  enthusiastic  hope.  I 
put  all  these  together  and  then  the  figures 
of  Paul  and  Luke  walking  together  through 
history  as  the  ministers  of  Christ, — the 
images  of  theology  and  medicine  laboring  in 
harmony  for  the  redemption  of  man,  for  the 
saving  of  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  —  become 
very  sacred  and  impressive.  May  their 
fellowship  become  more  generous  and  hearty 
as  the  years  go  on  !  May  each  gain  greater 
honor  for  the  other,  and  both  become  more 
humbly  and  transparently  the  ministers  of 
Christ!  v.  2,2,233. 


OCTOBER    19.  293 

AS  you  grow  better  .  .  .  you  sweep  up  out 
of  the  grasp  of  money,  praise,  ease,  dis 
tinction.  You  sweep  up  into  the  necessity  of 
truth,  courage,  virtue,  love,  and  God.  The 
gravitation  of  the  earth  grows  weaker,  the 
gravitation  of  the  stars  takes  stronger  and 
stronger  hold  upon  you.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  as  .you  grow  worse,  as  you  go  down,  the 
terrible  opposite  of  all  this  comes  to  pass.  The 
highest  necessities  let  you  go,  and  the  lowest 
necessities  take  tighter  hold  of  you.  Still,  as 
you  go  down,  you  are  judged  by  what  you  can 
do  without  and  what  you  cannot  do  without. 
You  come  down  at  last  where  you  cannot  do 
without  a  comfortable  dinner  and  an  easy  bed, 
but  you  can  do  without  an  act  of  charity  or  a 
thought  of  God.  Ig  2gj. 

Oh,  good,  gigantic  smile  o'  the  brown  old  earth, 
This  autumn  morning !     How  he  sets  his  bones 

To  bask  i'  the  sun,  and  thrusts  out  knees  and  feet 

For  the  ripple  to  run  over  in  its  mirth  ; 
Listening  the  while,  where  on  the  heap  of  stones 

The  white  breast  of  the  sea-lark  twitters  sweet. 

That  is  the  doctrine,  simple,  ancient,  true  ; 

Such  is  life's  trial,  as  old  earth  smiles  and  knows. 
If  you  loved  only  what  were  worth  your  love, 
Love  were  clear  gain,  and  wholly  well  for  you  : 

Make  the  low  nature  better  by  your  throes  ! 
Give  earth  yourself,  go  up  for  gain  above  ! 

BROWNING. 


294  OCTOBER   20. 


The  spirit  of  man  is  the  candle  of  the  Lord. 

PROV.  xx.  27. 

T_J  E  who  comes  into  the  presence  of  any  pow 
erful  nature,  whose  power  is  at  all  of  a 
spiritual  sort,  feels  sure  that  in  some  Vay  he  is 
coming  into  the  presence  of  God.  But  it  would 
be  melancholy  if  only  the  great  men  could  give 
us  this  conviction.  The  world  would  he  darker 
than  it  is  if  every  human  spirit,  so  soon  as  it 
became  obedient,  did  not  become  the  Lord's 
candle.  .  .  .  There  is  no  life  so  humble 
that,  if  it  be  true  and  genuinely  human  and 
obedient  to  God,  it  may  not  hope  to  shed  some 
of  His  light.  There  is  no  life  so  meagre  that 
the  greatest  and  wisest  of  us  can  afford  to  de 
spise  it.  We  cannot  know  at  all  at  what  sudden 

moment  it  may  flash  forth  with  the  life  of  God. 

n.  8,9. 

Our  little  systems  have  their  day  ; 
They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be  : 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 

And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they. 

TtNNYSON- 


OCTOBER   21.  295 


Jesus  said  unto  him,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  .  .  .  with  all  thy  mind.  —  MATT.  xxii.  37. 


,  the  Father  of  men,  is  not  satisfied  if 
His  children  give  Him  simply  gratitude  for 
His  mercies  or  the  most  loyal  obedience  to  His 
will  ;  He  wants  also,  as  the  fulfilment  of  their 
love  to  Him,  the  enthusiastic  use  of  their  intel 
lects,  intent  to  know  everything  that  it  is  pos 
sible  for  men  to  know  about  their  Father  and 
His  ways.  That  is  what  is  meant  by  loving 
God  with  the  mind.  And  is  there  not  some 
thing  sublimely  beautiful  and  touching  in  this 
demand  of  God  that  the  noblest  part  of  His 
children's  nature  should  come  to  Him  ?  "  Un 
derstand  me!  understand  me!"  He  seems  to 
cry;  "1  am  not  wholly  loved  by  you  unless 
your  understanding  is  reaching  out  after  my 
truth,  and  with  all  your  powers  of  thoughtfulness 
and  study  you  are  trying  to  find  out  all  that  you 
can  about  my  nature  and  my  ways."  m.  32. 

Vouchsafe  then,  O  Thou  most  Almightie  Spright  ! 
From  whom  all  gifts  of  wit  and  knowledge  flow, 
To  shed  into  my  breast  some  sparkling  light 
Of  Thine  eternall  Truth,  that  I  may  show 
Some  litle  beames  to  mortall  eyes  below 
Of  that  immortall  beautie,  there  with  Thee, 
Which  in  my  \veake  distraughted  mynd  I  see. 

SPENSER. 


296  OCTOBER   22. 


IT  is  the  continuity  of  life,  the  continuity  of 
nature,  that  is  our  salvation .  ' '  Nothing  from 
nothing"  is  the  first  law  of  her  household,  and 
her  dullest  children  must  learn  it,  for  it  is  written 
on  the  walls  that  shelter  them,  on  the  ground 
they  tread,  on  the  table  from  which  they  eat, 
and  on  the  tools  with  which  they  work. 

And  her  law  of  economy  is  just  as  clear.  Pro 
fusion,  but  no  waste ;  this  is  the  lesson  that 
Nature  reads  us  everywhere.  The  dead  leaves 
of  this  autumn  are  worked  into  next  year's  soil. 
The  little  stream  that  has  watered  the  greenness 
of  many  meadows  goes  afterwards  to  do  duty  in 
the  great  sea.  The  vast  surrounding  atmos 
phere  is  made  efficient  over  and  over  again  for 
the  breath  of  living  men.  Everywhere  pro 
fusion,  but  no  waste.  For  men  who  need  to  be 
trained  to  reasonableness  and  care,  God  has 
built  just  the  home  they  needed  for  their  train 
ing,  and  sent  us  to  live  in  this  star  which  shines 
among  His  other  stars  steadily  and  soberly  with 

its  double  light  of  continuity  and  economy. 

n.  132, 133. 

Mother  she  is  and  cradle  of  pur  race, 

A  depth  where  treasures  lie, 
The  broad  foundation  of  a  holy  place, 

Man's  step  to  scale  the  sky. 

Earth  may  not  pass  till  heaven  shall  pass  away, 

Nor  heaven  may  be  renewed 
Except  with  earth  ;  and  once  more  in  that  day 

Earth  shall  be  very  good. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


OCTOBER    23.  297 

CONTINUITY  and  economy  ;  these  are  the 
^•^  laws  of  Him  who  is  leading  us,  the  Cap 
tain  of  our  salvation.  He  always  binds  the 
future  to  the  past,  and  He  wastes  nothing. 
O,  there  are  some  here  who  want  to  get  away 
from  all  their  past ;  who,  if  they  could,  would 
fain  begin  all  over  again.  Their  life  with 
Christ  seems  one  long  failure.  But  you  must 
learn,  you  must  let  God  teach  you,  that  the 
only  way  to  get  rid  of  your  past  is  to  get  a 
future  out  of  it.  God  will  waste  nothing. 
Th^re  is  something  in  your  past,  something, 
even  if  it  only  be  the  sin  of  which  you  have 
repented,  which,  if  you  can  put  it  into  the 
Saviour's  hands,  will  be  a  new  life  for  you. 

ii.  145. 

'  Forsake  the  Christ  thou  sawest  transfigured,  Him 

Who  trod  the  sea  and  brought  the  dead  to  life? 

What  should  wring  this  from  thee  ?  '  —  ye  laugh  and 

ask. 

What  wrung  it?     Even  a  torchlight  and  a  noise, 
The  sudden  Roman  faces,  violent  hands, 
And  fear  of  what  the  Jews  might  do  !     Just  that, 
And,  it  is  written,  '  I  forsook  and  fled  ' : 
There  was  my  trial  and  it  ended  thus. 
Ay,  but  my  soul  had  gained  its  truth,  could  grow. 

BROWNING. 


298  OCTOBER    24. 

YOU  are  a  star  and  not  a  sun.  Your  place 
in  life  is  not  in  the  forefront  of  things  ;  it 
is  subordinate  and  secondary.  What  then  ? 
Can  you  learn  this  truth,  —  that  if  you  do 
your  work  with  complete  faithfulness  and  with 
the  most  absolute  perfectness  with  which  it  is 
capable  of  being  done,  you  are  making  just 
as  genuine  a  contribution  to  the  substance  of 
the  universal  good  as  is  the  most  brilliant 
worker  whom  the  world  contains  ?  You  are 
setting  as  true  a  fact  here  between  the 
eternities  as  he.  You  are  doing  what  he 
cannot  do.  It  is  Emerson's  fable  of  the 
Mountain  and  the  Squirrel,— 

"  If  I  cannot  carry  forests  on  my  back, 
Neither  can  you  crack  a  nut." 

"  There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun,  and  another 
glory  of  the  stars." 

All  our  works,  even  the  greatest,  are  so 
little  in  relation  to  the  world's  need  ;  all  our 
works,  even  the  least,  are  so  great  in  relation 
to  the  doer's  faithfulness.  There  is  the  secret 
of  self-respect.  Oh,  go  take  up  your  work 
and  do  it.  Do  it  with  cheerfulness  and  love. 
So  shall  you  shine  with  a  glory  which  is  all 
your  own,  —  a  glory  which  the  great  heaven 
of  universal  life  would  be  poorer  for  missing. 

V.  68,  6g 

"  Like  as  a  star, 
That  maketh  not  haste, 
That  taketh  not  rest, 
Be  each  one  fulfilling 
His  God-given  best. 


OCTOBER   25.  299 

A  bruised  reed  shall  lie  not  break, 

And  the  smoking  flax  shall  He  not  quench  : 

He  shall  bring  forth  judgment  unto  truth. 

Is.  xlii.  3. 

'"TO  say  "well-done"  to  any  bit  of  work 
that  has  embodied  good  effort,  is  to  take 
hold  of  the  powers  which  have  made  the  effort 
and  confirm  and  strengthen  them.  But  if  you 
have  nothing  to  say  to  your  child  or  to  your 
scholar  except  (what  may  be  perfectly  true) 
that  much  of  his  work  is  badly  done,  that  he  is 
wasting  opportunities  and  losing  the  value  of  his 
life,  then  you  are  coming  to  him  not  to  fulfil 
but  to  destroy. 

I  beg  you  to  think  of  this,  you  who  are  set 
in  positions  of  superintendence  and  authority. 
Make  a  great  deal  more  of  your  right  to  praise 
the  good  than  of  your  right  to  blame  the  bad. 
Never  let  a  brave  and  serious  struggle  after 
truth  and  goodness,  however  weak  it  may  be, 
pass  unrecognized.  Do  not  be  chary  of  appre 
ciation.  Hearts  are  unconsciously  hungry  for 
it.  There  is  little  danger,  especially  with  us  in 
this  cold  New  England  region,  that  appreciation 
shall  be  given  too  abundantly.  Iv.  2I4, 2I5. 


300  OCTOBER  26. 


And  lie  said  unto  J>"iiis,  Lord,  remember  me 
when  Thou  earnest  into  Thy  kingdom.  And  Jesus 
said  unto  him,  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  To-day  shalt 
thou  be  with  Me  in  Paradise. 

LUKK  xxiii.  42,  43. 

\1  7TTH  silent,  soft,  and  mighty  pressure,  the 
*  *  sight  of  the  Sufferer's  holiness,  and  the 
gratitude  for  the  Sufferer's  pity,  as  one  complete 
power,  one  perfect  love,  has  drawn  the  depths 
of  men's  lives  on  to  the  nature  of  the  Sufferer, 
and  there  their  oneness  to  Him  has  become 
known  to  them,  and  they,  in  and  through  Him, 
have  been  renewed  into  the  image  of  their 
Father,  and  His  Father.  The  robber  who  was 
crucified  with  Him  felt  that  power  first.  It  was 
a  baptism  of  blood,  and  the  power  which  our 
baptisms  re-echo  found  its  first  utterance  in 
Him.  "  Being  by  nature,  born  in  sin  and  the 
child  of  wrath,"  there  by  the  fellowship  of 
suffering,  there  by  the  power  of  love,  in  which 
admiration  and  gratitude  met,  he  was  made  the 
"  Child  of  grace."  INFLUENCE,  53. 

O   Jesus,   Who  lovest  us  all,  stoop  low  from  Thy 

Glory  above  : 
Where  sin  hath  abounded  make  grace  to  abound  and 

superabound, 

Till  we  gaze  on  Thee  face  unto  Face,  and  respond  to 
Thee  love  unto  Love. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


OCTOBER   27.  301 

/  have,  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith. 

II.  TIM.  iv.  7. 

/\A  EN  lose  their  love  and  trust  and  hope,  as 
they  grow  old.  Here  was  a  man  [St. 
Paul]  who  kept  them  all  fresh  to  the  last. 
Men  cease  to  have  strong  convictions,  and 
grow  cynical  or  careless.  Here  was  a  man 
who  believed  more,  and  not  less,  as  he  knew 
more  of  God,  and  of  himself,  and  of  the  world. 
His  old  age  did  not  come  creeping  into  port,  a 
wreck,  with  broken  masts  and  rudder  gone, 
but  full-sailed  still,  and  strong  for  other  voyages 
in  other  seas.  We  are  sure  that  his  was  the 
old  age  God  loves  to  see;  that  the  careless 
and  the  hopeless  and  the  faithless  are  the 
failures.  To  such  men  as  Paul  alone  is  God's 
promise  to  David  fulfilled:  "With  long  life 
will  I  satisfy  him  and  show  him  my  salva 
tion."  „.  „. 

Youth  ended,  I  shall  try 
My  gain  or  loss  thereby ; 
Be  the  fire  ashes,  what  survives  is  gold : 
And  I  shall  weigh  the  same, 
Give  life  its  praise  or  blame : 
Young,  all  lay  in  dispute  ;  1  shall  know  being  old. 

BROWNING 


302  OCTOBER   28. 


R  creed,  our  credo,  anything  which  we 
call  by  such  a  sacred  name,  is  not  what 
we  have  thought,  but  what  our  Lord  has  told 
us.  The  true  creed  must  come  down  from 
above  and  not  out  from  within.  Have  your 
opinions  always,  but  do  not  bind  yourself  to 
them.  Call  your  opinions  your  creed,  and 
you  will  change  it  every  week.  Make  your 
creed  simply  and  broadly  out  of  the  revelation 
of  God,  and  you  may  keep  it  to  the  end.  This 
is  the  difference  between  the  hundreds  of  long, 
detailed  confessions  of  many  differing  sects, 
overloaded  with  the  minute  speculations  of 
good  men,  which  take  in  and  dismiss  their 
believers  like  the  nightly  lodgers  of  an  eastern 
caravansary,  and  the  short  scriptural  creed  of 
the  church  universal,  into  which  souls  come 
seeking  rest  and  strength,  and  live  in  it  as  in  a 
home,  and  go  no  more  out  forever.  j.  71r  72. 

O  Almighty  God,  who  hast  built  Thy  Church  upon 
the  foundation  of  the  Apostles  and  Prophets,  Jesus 
Christ  Himself  being  the  head  corner-stone  ;  Grant  us 
so  to  be  joined  together  in  unity  of  spirit  by  their  doc 
trine,  that  we  may  be  made  an  holy  temple  acceptable 
unto  Thee ;  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

BOOK  OK  COMMON  PRAYER. 


OCTOBER   29.  303 

\Vhile.  Peter  thought  on  the  vision,  the  Spirit 
said  unto  him,  .Behold,  three  men  seek  //ice. 

ACTS  x.   19. 

"C  VERY  man  has  visions,  glimpses  clearer  or 
•*— '  duller,  now  bright  and  beautiful,  now 
clouded  and  obscure,  of  what  is  absolutely  and 
abstractly  true ;  and  every  man  also  has  press 
ing  on  him  the  warm,  clear  lives  of  fellow-men. 
There  is  the  world  of  truths  on  one  side,  and 
there  is  the  world  of  men  upon  the  other.  Be 
tween  the  two  stands  man  ;  and  these  two 
worlds,  if  man  is  what  he  ought  to  be,  meet 
through  his  nature. 

Truth  is  vague  and  helpless  until  men  believe 
it.  Men  are  weak  and  frivolous  till  they  believe 
in  truth.  To  furnish  truth  to  the  believing 
heart,  and  to  furnish  believing  hearts  to  truth, 
certainly  there  is  no  nobler  office  for  a  human 
life  than  that.  .  .  .  How  can  we  better  tell  the 
story  of  you  who  first  believe  in  God  yourself 
and  then  are  drawn  out  to  make  your  fellow-men 
believe  in  Him,  and  in  making  them  believe  in 
Him  find  your  own  belief  grow  steadier  and 
clearer  —  how  shall  we  better  depict  this  human 
life  which  never  learns  anything  without  hear 
ing  other  human  lives  clamoring  to  share  the 
blessings  of  its  knowledge  than  by  recurring  to 
the  story  of  Peter,  to  whom,  "  as  he  thought  on 
the  vision,  the  Spirit  said,  Behold,  three  men 
seek  thee."  j  .  2 . 


304  OCTOBER   30. 

I  am  tlie  .  .  .    Truth.  —  JOHN  xiv.  6. 

'"THE  great  fact  concerning  (the  intellectual 
1  life  of  Jesus)  is  this,  that  in  Him  the  in 
tellect  never  works  alone.  You  never  can 
separate  its  workings  from  the  complete  opera 
tion  of  the  whole  nature.  He  never  simply 
knows,  but  always  loves  and  resolves  at  the 
same  time.  Truth  which  the  mind  discovers 
becomes  immediately  the  possession  of  the  af 
fections  and  the  will.  It  cannot  remain  in  the 
condition  of  mere  knowledge.  Indeed,  knowl 
edge  is  no  word  of  Jesus.  Solomon  in  the  Book 
of  Proverbs  is  always  talking  about  knowledge. 
Jesus,  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  is  always  talking 
about  truth.  So  genuine  is  the  unity  of  His 
being,  that  what  comes  to  Him  as  knowledge 
is  pressed  and  gathered  into  every  part  of  Him, 
and  fills  His  entire  nature  as  truth.  The  rays 
of  intellectual  light  are  absorbed  into  the  whole 
substance  of  the  spontaneous  affections  and  the 
unerring  will.  The  right  and  the  true,  the 
wrong  and  the  false,  are  not  separable  from  one 
another.  The  life  is  simple  because  of  its  com 
pleteness.  It  is  the  true  unity  of  a  man. 

INFLUENCE,  219. 

O  Father  of  Truth, 

Have  mercy  upon  us. 
O  Express  Image  of  the  Father, 

Change  us  into  Thy  likeness. 
O  Ineffable  Truth, 

Guide  us  into  all  truth. 

BOOK  OK  LITANIES.    NEALE 


OCTOBER    31.  305 

If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  knoiu  of 
the  doctrine. — JOHN  vii.  17. 

If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  words :  and 
my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto 
him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him. 

JOHN  xiv.  23. 

'"THOSE,  I  think,  are  the  two  critical  passages 
*  in  which  Jesus  gives  us  His  doctrine  of  the 
intellectual  life.  They  are  as  clear  and  definite 
as  if  they  were  written  in  a  book  of  science. 
They  both  declare  that  in  the  highest  things 
the  intellect  can  never  work  alone  for  the  dis 
covery  of  truth.  Truth,  when  it  is  won,  is  the 
possession  of  the  whole  nature.  By  the  action 
of  the  whole  nature  only  can  it  be  gained.  The 
king  must  go  with  his  counsellors  at  his  side  and 
his  army  at  his  back,  or  he  makes  no  conquest. 
The  intellect  must  be  surrounded  by  the  rich 
ness  of  the  affections  and  backed  by  the  power 
of  the  will,  or  it  attains  no  perfect  truth. 

INFLUENCE.  247. 

Happy  the  man  taught  by  the  truth  itself  ; 

Not  by  the  shapes  and  sounds  that  pass  across  his  life 

But  by  the  very  truth. 

Our  thoughts  and  senses  often  lead  us  wrong  ; 

They  see  one  side  alone. 

O  God  of  truth 

Make  me  one  with  Thee  in  eternal  love. 
Oft  am  I  weary,  reading,  listening, 
But  all  I  wish  and  long  for  is  in  Thee. 
Then  silent  be  all  teachers,  hushed  be  all  creation  at  the 

sight  of  Thee  : 
Speak  Thou  to  me  alone. 

THOMAS  A  KFMPIS. 


306  NOVEMBER  i. 


YOU  go  to  your  saint  and  find  God  working 
and  manifest  in  him.  He  got  near  to 
God  by  some  saint  of  his  that  went  before  him, 
or  that  stood  beside  him,  in  whom  he  saw  the 
Divine  presence.  That  saint  again  lighted  his 
fire  at  some  flame  before  him  ;  and  so  the  power 
of  the  sainthoods  animates  and  fills  the  world. 
So  holiness  and  purity,  and  truth  and  patience, 
daring  and  tenderness,  hope  and  faith,  are  kept 
constant  and  pervading  things  in  our  humanity. 
Each  man  has  not  to  begin  and  work  them  out 
from  the  beginning  for  himself.  So  there  is  a 
church  of  God  as  well  as  souls  of  God  in  the 
earth.  This  is  the  truth  of  All  Saints. 

I.     122,     123. 

Then  sudden  silence  made  a  little  space 

For  the  One  Voice  that  fills  the  universe, 

And   Christ's  own   roll-call    swept    the    white    camp 

through. 

And  lo  !  the  faithful  noiseless  moved  as  thought 
Responsive,  yet  unconscious  of  response, 
Their  rapt  eyes  lifted  to  the  shining  morn, 
As  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible. 
He  named  them,  clan  by  clan,  His  chosen  ones  : 
The  poor  in  spirit,  and  the  souls  that  mourn, 
The  meek,  and  those  for  righteousness  athirst, 
The  merciful,  the  pure  in  heart,  the  just, 
The  valiant,  the  forbearing,  named  He  thus. 
For  every  clan  a  benediction  sweet, 
And  sweeter  promises  of  victory. 

HARRIET  McEwtN  KIMBALL. 


NOVEMBER   2.  307 


THE  Church  is  the  union  of  believers,  out 
wardly  manifested  by  the  sacraments,  but 
having  its  essence  in  the  personal  union  of  each 
believer's  soul  with  Christ.  .  .  .  This  Jesus 
must  be  a  true  Lord  of  men.  This  power  which 
draws  His  disciples  to  each  other  must  be  a 
genuine  power.  These  sacraments  must  be  in 
trinsically  natural  utterances  of  what  they  try 
to  express  ;  for,  lo,  everywhere  the  Church  has 
built  itself  !  In  every  age,  in  every  land  she 
stands,  her  single  life  pulsating  with  the  multi 
tudinous  life  of  which  she  is  composed,  the  ul 
timate  pulsation  coming  from  the  living  life  of 
her  Master,  to  which  every  particle  of  her  being 
immediately  responds  ;  the  two  jewels  on  her 
breast-plate  burning  with  ever-deepening  and 
accumulating  richness,  and  making  together  the 
clasp  which  holds  about  her  essential  nature  the 
robe  of  her  outward  form.  v.  i8o. 

Lord,  grant  us  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear 
And  souls  to  love  and  minds  to  understand, 
And  steadfast  faces  toward  the  Holy  Land, 

And  confidence  of  hope,  and  filial  fear, 

And  citizenship  where  Thy  saints  appear 
Before  Thee  heart  in  heart  and  hand  in  hand, 
And  Alleluias  where  their  chanting  band 

As  waters  and  as  thunders  fill  the  sphere. 

Lord,  grant  us  what  Thou  wilt,  and  what  Thou  wilt 
Deny,  and  fold  us  in  Thy  peaceful  fold  : 
Not  as  the  world  gives,  give  to  us  Thine  own  : 

Inbuild  us  where  Jerusalem  is  built 

With  walls  of  jasper  and  with  streets  of  gold, 
And  Thou  Thyself,  Lord  Christ,  for  Corner-Stone. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


308  NOVEMBER    3. 


E  have  sometimes  known  some  men  or 
women,  helpless  so  that  their  lives 
seemed  to  be  all  dependent,  who  yet,  through 
their  sickness,  had  so  mounted  to  a  higher  life 
and  so  identified  themselves  with  Christ  that 
those  on  whom  they  rested  found  the  Christ 
in  them  and  rested  upon  it.  Their  sick-rooms 
became  churches.  Their  weak  voices  spoke 
gospels.  The  hands  they  seemed  to  clasp 
were  really  clasping  theirs.  They  were  de 
pended  on  while  they  seemed  to  be  most  de 
pendent.  And  when  they  died,  when  the  faint 
flicker  of  their  life  went  out,  strong  men  whose 
light  seemed  radiant,  found  themselves  walk 
ing  in  the  darkness ;  and  stout  hearts,  on 
which  theirs  used  to  lean,  trembled  as  if  the 
staff  and  substance  of  their  strength  was  gone. 

ii.  365- 

What  is  this  psalm  from  pitiable  places 
Glad  where  the  messengers  of  peace  have  trod 

Whose  are  these  beautiful  and  holy  faces 
Lit  with  their  loving  and  aflame  with  God  ? 

Eager  and  faint,  empassionate  and  lonely, 
These  in  their  hour  shall  prophesy  again  : 

This  is  His  will  who  hath  endured,  and  only 
Sendeth  the  promise  where  He  sends  the  pain. 

Ay  unto  these  distributeth  the  Giver 
Sorrow  and  sanctity,  and  loves  them  well, 

Grants  them  a  power  and  passion  to  deliver 
Hearts  from  the  prison-house  and  souls  from  hell. 

F.  W.  H.  MYERS. 


NOVEMBER   4.  309 


'"THE  Holy  Catholic  Church,  the  Communion 
of  Saints!  Wherever  men  are  praying, 
loving,  trusting,  seeking,  and  finding  God,  it  is 
a  true  body  with  all  its  ministries  of  part  to 
part.  Nay,  shall  we  stop  at  that  poor  line, 
the  grave,  which  all  our  Christianity  is  always 
trying  to  wipe  out  and  make  nothing  of,  and 
which  we  always  insist  on  widening  into  a 
great  gulf?  Shall  we  not  stretch  our  thought 
beyond,  and  feel  the  life-blood  of  this  holy 
church,  this  living  body  of  Christ,  pulsing  out 
into  the  saints  who  are  living  there,  and  com 
ing  back  throbbing  with  tidings  of  their  glori 
ous  and  sympathetic  life.  It  is  the  very  power 
of  this  truth  of  ours  to-day,  that  it  lays  hold 
on  immortality.  1. 133. 

Light  is  our  sorrow  for  it  ends  to-morrow, 
Light  is  our  death  which  cannot  hold  us  fast ; 
So  brief  a  sorrow  can  be  scarcely  sorrow, 
Or  death  be  death  so  quickly  past. 

One  night,  no  more,  of  pain  that  turns   to  pleasure, 
One  night,  no  more,  of  weeping,  weeping  sore; 
And  then  the  heaped-up  measure  beyond  measure, 
In  quietness  forevermore. 

Our  sails  are  set  to  cross  the  tossing  river, 
Our  face  is  set  to  reach  Jerusalem  ; 
We  toil  awhile,  but  then  we  rest  forever, 
Sing  with  all  Saints  and  rest  with  them  above. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


3io  NOVEMBER    5. 


CORRUPTION  in  political  life  is  really 
V->  scepticism.  It  is  a  distrust,  a  disuse 
which  has  lasted  so  long  that  it  has  grown 
into  disbelief  of  political  principles,  of  the 
first  fundamental  truths  of  the  sacredness  of 
government  and  the  necessity  of  righteous 
ness.  And  where  has  such  a  disbelief  come 
from  ?  We  all  know  well  enough.  It  is 
from  the  narrow  view  which  has  looked  at 
machineries,  and  magnified  them  till  they 
have  hid  from  view  the  great  purposes  for 
which  all  machineries  exist.  If  a  man  tells 
me  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  such 
or  such  a  political  party  should  be  maintained 
whether  its  acts  and  its  men  are  righteous  or 
unrighteous,  or  else  the  government  will  fall, 
that  man  is  an  unbeliever.  He  has  lost  his 
faith  in  the  first  principles  of  government, 
and  he  has  lost  it  by  persistently  tying 
down  his  study  and  his  soul  to  second  causes, 
to  the  mere  machinery  of  party.  j.  l6l. 

Our  fathers  to  their  graves  have  gone  ; 
Their  strife  is  past  —  their  triumph  won  ; 
But  sterner  trials  wait  the  race 
Which  rises  in  their  honored  place  — 
A  moral  warfare  with  the  crime 
And  folly  of  an  evil  time. 

So  let  it  be.     In  God's  own  might 

We  gird  us  for  the  coming  fight, 

And,  strong  in  Him  whose  cause  is  ours 

In  conflict  with  unholy  powers, 

We  grasp  the  weapons  He  has  given,  — 

The  Light,  and  Truth,  and  Love  of  Heaven. 

WHITTIER. 


(NOVEMBER  6.  311 

T  S  there  a  greater  call  than  that  which  comes 
*  out  of  the  depths  of  a  nation's  needs? 
"Tell  me  what  this  means,  and  that,  in  my 
experience.  Tell  me  how  I  shall  get  rid  of  this 
corruption  and  that  danger.  Tell  me  how  I  can 
best  be  governed.  Help  me  to  self-control." 
These  are  the  appeals  which  come  out  of  the 
nation's  heart  of  hearts.  And  what  is  it  that 
they  find  to  cry  to  ?  In  part,  at  least,  are  they 
not  answered  back  by  personal  ambitions,  by 
party  spirit,  by  the  trickery  of  selfishness,  and 
by  the  base  love  of  management  ?  This  is  the 
misery  of  politics, — the  disproportion  between 
the  interests  which  are  at  stake  and  the  men 
and  machineries  which  deal  with  them.  Those 
interests  need  the  profoundest  thought  and  the 
most  absolute  devotion.  In  some  degree  they 
get  it ;  but  how  often  what  they  get  is  only 
prejudice  and  passion,  —  the  lightest,  least  rea 
sonable,  most  superficial  action  of  our  human 
nature.  v.  243, 244. 

Life  or  death  then,  who  shall  heed  it,  what  we  gain  or 

what  we  lose  ? 
Fair  flies  life  amid  the  struggle,  and  the  Cause  for  each 

shall  choose. 

Hear  a  word,  a  word  in  season,  for  the  day  is  drawing 

nigh, 
When  the  Cause  shall  call  upon  us,  some  to  live  and 

some  to  die ! 

WILLIAM  MORRIS. 


312  NOVEMBER    7. 


He  that  s owe th  to  his  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap 
corruption  ;  but  he  that  soweth  to  the  Spirit  shall 
of  the  Spirit  reap  life  everlasting.  —  GAL.  vi.  8. 

ALL  prohibitory  measures  are  negative.  That 
they  have  their  use  no  one  can  doubt. 
That  they  have  their  limits  is  just  as  clear.  He 
who  thinks  that  nothing  but  the  moral  methods 
for  the  prevention  of  intemperance  and  crime 
can  do  the  work  is  a  mere  theorist  of  the  closet 
and  knows  very  little  about  the  actual  state  of 
human  nature.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
man  who  thinks  that  any  strictest  system  of 
prohibition,  most  strictly  kept  in  force,  could 
permanently  keep  men  from  drink,  or  any  other 
vice,  knows  little  of  human  nature  either.  That 
nature  is  too  active  and  too  live  to  be  kept  right 
by  mere  negations.  You  cannot  kill  any  one 
of  its  appetites  by  merely  starving  it.  You 
must  give  it  its  true  food,  and  so  only  can  you 
draw  it  off  from  the  poison  that  it  covets.  Here 
comes  in  the  absolute  necessity  of  providing 
rational  and  cheap  amusements  for  the  people 
whom  our  philanthropists  are  trying  to  draw 
off  from  the  tavern  and  the  gambling-house. 
Pictures,  parks,  museums,  libraries,  music,  a 
healthier  and  happier  religion,  a  brighter,  sun 
nier  tone  to  all  our  life,  —  these  are  the  positive 
powers  which  must  come  in  with  every  form 
of  prohibition  and  restraint  before  our  poorer 
people  can  be  brought  to  live  a  sensible  and 
sober  life.  ,.  356>  357. 


NOVEMBER    8.  313 


\\  7HAT  is  more  dreadful  than  irreverent  art 
*  ^  which  paints  all  that  it  sees,  because  it  sees 
almost  nothing,  and  yet  does  not  dream  that 
there  is  more  to  see ;  which  suggests  nothing 
because  it  suspects  nothing  profounder  than  the 
flimsy  tale  it  tells,  and  would  fain  make  us  all 
believe  that  there  is  no  sacredness  in  woman, 
nor  nobleness  in  man,  nor  secret  in  Nature,  nor 
dignity  in  life?  Irreverence  everywhere  is  blind 
ness  and  not  sight.  It  is  the  stare  which  is  bold 
because  it  believes  in  its  heart  that  there  is 
nothing  which  its  insolent  intelligence  may  not 
fathom,  and  so  which  finds  only  what  it  looks 
for,  and  makes  the  world  as  shallow  as  it  ig- 
norantly  dreams  the  world  to  be.  v.  25o. 

In  the  old  days  of  awe  and  keen-eyed  wonder, 

The  poet's  song  with  blood-warm  truth  was  rife  ; 
He  saw  the  mysteries  which  circle  under 

The  outward  shell  and  skin  of  daily  life. 
Nothing  to  him  were  fleeting  time  and  fashion, 

His  soul  was  led  by  the  eternal  law  ; 
There  was  in  him  no  hope  of  fame,  no  passion, 

But  with  calm,  godlike  eyes  he  only  saw. 


Awake,  then,  thou !  we  pine  for  thy  great  presence 
To  make  us  feel  the  soul  once  more  sublime, 

We  are  of  far  too  infinite  an  essence 
To  rest  contented  with  the  lies  of  Time. 

JAA\ES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


314  NOVEMBER   9. 

THE  higher,  soberer,  spiritual  optimism  to 
which  they  come  who  are  able  to  believe 
that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  the 
man  or  the  people  that  serve  Him.  .  .  . 
That  was  the  optimism  of  Jesus.  There  was 
no  blindness  in  His  eyes,  no  foolish  indis 
criminate  praise  of  humanity  upon  His  lips. 
He  saw  the  sin  of  that  first  century  and  of 
Jerusalem  a  thousand  times  more  keenly  than 
you  see  the  sins  of  this  nineteenth  century 
and  of  America.  But  He  believed  in  God. 
Therefore  He  saw  beyond  the  sin,  salvation. 
He  never  upbraided  the  sin  except  to  save 
men  from  it.  He  never  beat  the  chains 
except  to  set  the  captive  free  ;  never,  as  our 
cynics  do,  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  their 
clanking.  "Not  to  condemn  the  world,  but 
to  save  the  world,"  was  His  story  of  His 
mission.  And  at  His  cross  the  shame  and 
hope  of  humankind  joined  hands.  n.  l6l. 

Grant  us  hope  from  earth  to  rise, 
And  to  strain  with  eager  eyes 
Towards  the  promised  heavenly  pri/e  : 
We  beseech  Thee,  hear  us. 

Grant  us  love  Thy  love  to  own, 
Love  to  live  for  Thee  alone, 
And  the  power  of  grace  make  known  : 
We  beseech  Thee,  hear  us. 

Lead  us  daily  nearer  Thee 
Till  at  last  Thy  face  we  see, 
Crowned  with  Thine  own  purity. 
We  beseech  Thee,  hear  us. 

LITANY  oi;  PENITENCE 


NOVEMBER   10.  315 


\\/E  can,  and  I  think  we  ought  to,  earnestly 
W  assert,  when  men  praise  it  most  loudly, 
that  secularism,  however  we  may  accept  it 
cheerfully,  as  the  only  expedient  for  the  present 
time,  is  not  the  highest  nor  the  eternal  type  of 
government.  We  may  strive,  by  that  devotion 
to  the  spiritual  element  in  national  life  which 
even  pure  secularity  of  public  methods  still 
leaves  possible,  to  hasten  the  day,  which  must 
come  if  Christ  be  what  we  know  He  is,  when 
the  idea  of  Jesus  shall  be  the  shaping  and  mov 
ing  power  of  the  Christian  State;  and  among 
the  happy  sons  of  God  the  Son  of  God  shall 
evidently  reign,  as  the  old  phrase  describes, 
"  King  of  nations  as  King  of  saints." 

INFLUENCE,  136,  137.  ' 

Thy  kingdom  come,  O  God  ! 

Thy  rule,  O  Christ,  begin  ! 
Break  with  Thine  iron  rod 

The  tyrannies  of  sin  ! 

Where  is  Thy  reign  of  peace, 

And  purity,  and  love? 
When  shall  all  hatred  cease, 

As  in  the  realms  above  ? 

We  pray  Thee,  Lord,  arise, 
And  come  in  Thy  great  might ; 

Revive  our  longing  eyes, 
Which  languish  for  Thy  sight. 

LEWIS  HENSLEY 


316  NOVEMBER    11. 

The  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life. 

II.  COR.  iii.  6. 

THE  Christian  Church  has  her  symbols 
and  her  ordinances,  and  she  has  her 
true  and  inner  life.  Her  outward  ways  of 
living  really  belong  with  her  inward  power. 
In  a  perfectly  harmonious  world  there  never 
could  be  any  conflict.  In  Heaven  the  outward 
and  the  inward  church  shall  absolutely  corre 
spond  ;  but  here  and  now  the  church  may  be 
so  set  upon  her  symbols  and  her  regularities 
that  she  shall  fail  of  doing  her  most  perfect 
work  and  living  her  most  perfect  life.  The 
Christian  may  be  so  bound  to  rites  and  cere 
monies  that  he  loses  the  God  to  whom  they 
ought  to  bring  him  near.  The  congregation 
may  be  so  jealous  for  its  liturgy  that  it  loses 
the  power  of  prayer.  The  church  at  large  may 
make  so  much  of  its  apostolic  ministry  that  it 
loses  the  present  ministry  of  Christ  Himself. 
Here  it  certainly  is  true  that  no  symbol  is 
doing  its  true  work  unless  it  is  educating  those 
who  use  it  to  do  without  itself  if  need  be.  The 
Christian  is  misusing  his  rites  and  ceremonies, 
unless  they  are  bringing  him  more  personally 
and  immediately  near  to  God.  The  congre 
gation  is  not  using  its  liturgy  aright  if  it  is 
getting  more  and  more  unable  to  worship  ex 
cept  in  just  that  form  and  order;  and  the 
church  is  suffering  and  not  thriving  by  her 
ancient  ministry  if  she  is  making  it  exclusive 
and  mechanical,  and  calling  none  the  ministers 
of  Christ  who  have  not  that  ordination. 


NOVEMBER    12.  317 

\1  7 HEN  Jesus  met  the  woman  of  Samaria  at 
the  well  He  honored  her ;  He  valued  and 
reverenced  her  soul.  When  He  met  Pontius 
Pilate,  He  honored  him.  When  He  dealt  day 
after  day  with  the  ripening  treachery  of  Judas 
Iscariot,  He  honored  him.  When  He  found 
John  the  Baptist  making  the  door  ready  through 
which  He  was  to  enter  on  His  work,  He  honored 
him.  The  spiritual  nature,  the  special  humanity, 
of  each  of  them  seemed  to  Him,  not  in  any  mere 
fiction  but  in  simple  truth,  to  he  a  beautiful  and 
precious  thing.  His  honor  for  that  was  the  soul 
of  His  courteousness.  And  then  the  special 
words  He  said,  whether  of  sympathy  or  of  re 
buke,  might  be  just  what  the  special  occasion 
bade  them  be.  Different  as  they  were,  they 
were  all  courteous  alike  because  of  this  personal 
honor  and  value  that  filled  them  all.  There  is 
no  complete  courtesy  that  lias  not  such  a  soul 
and  such  a  body,  —  a  soul  of  honor  for  the  in 
dividual,  living  in  and  uttering  itself  through  the 
intelligent  recognition  of  the  class  condition. 

INFLUENCE,  n6,  117. 

Man  he  loved 

As  man  ;  and  to  the  mean  and  the  obscure, 
And  all  the  homely  in  their  homely  works, 
Transferred  a  courtesy  which  had  no  air 
Of  condescension.  WORDSWOKTH. 


318  NOVEMBER    13. 


'"THERE  is  something  so  sublimely  positive  in 
Nature.  She  never  kills  for  the  mere  sake 
of  killing  ;  but  every  death  is  but  one  step  in 
the  vast  weaving  of  the  web  of  life.  She  has 
no  process  of  destruction  which,  as  you  turn  it 
to  the  other  side  and  look  at  it  in  what  you 
know  to  be  its  truer  light,  you  do  not  see  to  be 
a  process  of  construction.  She  gets  rid  of  her 
wastes  by  ever  new  plans  of  nutrition.  This  is 
what  gives  her  such  a  courageous,  hopeful,  and 
enthusiastic  look,  and  makes  men  love  her  as  a 
mother  and  not  fear  her  as  a  tyrant.  They  see 
by  small  signs,  and  dimly  feel,  this  positiveness 
of  her  workings  which  it  is  the  glory  of  natural 
science  to  reveal  more  and  more.  i.  359. 

Verily  now  is  our  season  of  seed, 

Now  in  our  Autumn  ;  and  Earth  discerns 

Them  that  have  served  her,  in  them  that  can  read, 

Glassing  where  under  the  surface  she  burns 

Quick  at  her  wheel,  while  the  fuel,  decay, 

Brightens  the  fire  of  renewal ;  and  we? 

Death  is  the  word  of  a  bovine  day 

Know  you  the  heart  of  the  springing  To-be. 

GEORGE  MEREDITH. 


NOVEMBER    14.  319 

GOD  is  infinitely  various.  His  great  arms  can 
hold  the  infant  like  a  mother,  and  build 
a  strong  wall  about  the  mature  man  who  is 
fighting  the  noonday  fight  of  life,  and  lay  the 
bridge  of  sunset  over  which  the  old  man's  feet 
may  walk  serenely  into  the  eternal  day.  .  .  . 
How  shall  the  soul  carry  with  it  the  sense  of 
safety  and  assurance  in  God,  which  it  has  won 
within  His  earthly  care,  forth  into  this  unknown, 
untrodden  vastness  whither  it  now  must  go  ? 
Only  in  one  way  ;  only  by  deepening  as  deeply 
as  possible  its  assurance  that  it  is  God  —  not  ac 
cident,  not  its  own  ingenuity,  not  its  brethren's 
kindness  —  that  it  is  God  who  made  this  earthly 
life  so  rich  and  happy.  God  is  too  vast,  too  in 
finite  for  earth.  He  is  too  vast  for  time,  and 
needs  eternity.  Wrapped  into  Him  the  soul 
may  be  not  merely  resigned  ;  it  may  be  even 
impatient  to  explore  those  larger  regions  where 
the  power  which  has  made  itself  known  to  it 
here  shall  be  able  to  display  to  it  all  the  com 
pleteness  of  its  nature  and  its  love.  .  .  .  The 
child  of  God  may  wish  for  eternity,  sure  that 
there  upon  the  vaster  fields  he  shall  see  vaster 
exhibitions  of  that  power  and  grace  which  he 
has  learned  completely  to  believe  in  here. 

n.  326, 327. 

A  little  longer  still  —  patience,  beloved  : 
A  little  longer  still,  ere  heaven  unroll 

The  glory,  and  the  brightness,  and  the  wonder, 
Eternal  and  divine,  that  waits  thy  soul. 

A  little  longer,  and  thy  heart,  beloved, 
Shall  beat  forever  with  a  love  divine  ; 

And  joy  so  pure,  so  mighty,  so  eternal, 
No  mortal  knows,  and  lives,  shall  then  be  thine. 
HYMNS  OF  THE  AGES. 


320  NOVEMBER    15. 


enthusiasm,  hope,  content,  - 
these  are  the  true  conditions  of  a  Chris 
tian  life,  just  as  song  is  the  true  condition  of 
the  bird,  or  color  of  the  rose.  But  just  as  the 
bird  is  still  a  bird  although  it  cannot  sing,  and 
the  rose  is  still  a  rose  although  its  red  grows 
dull  and  faded  in  some  dark,  close  room  where 
it  is  compelled  to  grow,  —  so  the  Christian  is  a 
Christian  still,  even  although  his  soul  is  dark 
with  doubt,  and  he  goes  staggering  on,  fearing 
every  moment  that  he  will  fall,  never  daring 
to  look  up  and  hope.  v.  173. 

Shadows  to-day,  while  shadows  show  God's  Will. 

Light  were  not  good  except  He  sent  us  light. 

Shadows  to-day,  because  this  day  is  night 
Whose  marvels  and  whose  mysteries  fulfil 
Their  course  and  deep  in  darkness  serve  Him  still. 

Thou  dim  aurora,  on  the  extremes!  height 

Of  airy  summits  wax  not  over  bright ; 
Refrain  thy  rose,  refrain  thy  daffodil. 
Until  God's  Word  go  forth  to  kindle  thee 

And  garland  thee  and  bid  thee  stoop  to  us, 
Blush  in  the  heavenly  choirs  and  glance  not  down  : 
To-day  we  race  in  darkness  for  a  crown, 
In  darkness  for  beatitude  to  be, 

In  darkness  for  the  city  luminous. 

CHKISTI.NA  ROSSETTI 


NOVEMBER    16.  321 


Behold,  God  liiinself  is  with  us  for  our  captain. 

II.  CHRON.  xiii.  12. 

ST.  PAUL  has  a  noble  verse  which  says 
that  "experience  worketh  hope."  It 
must,  if  it  is  full  of  Christ.  The  soul  that 
is  getting  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  certain 
knowledge  of  Him  must  be  learning  that  it  has 
no  right  to  fear ;  that  however  hopeless  things 
look  there  can  be  nothing  but  success  for 
every  good  cause  in  the  hand  of  Christ.  It  is 
a  noble  process  for  a  man's  life  that  gradually 
changes  the  cold  dogma  that  "truth  is  strong 
and  must  prevail  "  into  a  warm  enthusiastic 
certainty  that  "my  Christ  must  conquer." 
It  is  terrible  to  see  a  man  calling  himself  a 
Christian  who  despairs  more  of  the  world  the 
longer  he  lives  in  it.  It  shows  that  he  is 
letting  the  world's  darkness  come  between 
him  and  his  Lord's  light.  It  shows  that  he 
is  not  near  enough  to  Christ. 

And  with  the  growing  hopefulness  there 
comes  a  growing  courage.  How  timid  we  are 
at  first !  1  become  a  Christian,  and  it  seems 
as  if  just  to  get  this  soul  of  mine  saved  were 
all  that  1  could  dare  to  try ;  but  as  the 
Saviour's  strength  becomes  more  manifest  to 
me,  as  I  know  Him  more,  I  see  that  He  is 
able  to  do  much  more  than  that.  I  begin 
to  aspire  to  have  a  little  part  in  the  great 
conquest  of  the  world  in  which  He  is  en 
gaged.  And  so  the  Soldier  of  the  Cross  at 
last  is  out  in  the  very  thick  of  the  battle, 
striking  at  all  his  Master's  enemies  in  the 
perfect  assurance  of  his  Master's  strength. 

II.  57. 


322  NOVEMBER    17. 


T  HOPE  that  many  of  you  have  read  the  in- 
1  teresting  hook  which  gives  an  account  of 
the  Personal  Life  of  David  Livingstone.  It  is  a 
noble  record  of  a  nohle  history.  But  the  great 
beauty  of  his  life  as  it  comes  out  there  is  in  the 
centralness  of  his  religion.  Two  of  the  greatest 
interests  of  the  human  mind  and  soul  were  al 
ways  with  him  —  science  and  philanthropy.  He 
opened  the  desert  and  traced  the  mysterious 
rivers,  and  watched  the  wanderings  of  the  stars. 
He  trampled  out  the  slave  trade  in  whole  regions 
of  its  worst  brutality  ;  but,  at  the  heart  of  them, 
the  man's  science  and  philanthropy  both  got 
their  light  from  his  religion.  He  was  first,  last, 
and  always  and  above  all  things  the  Christian 
and  the  Christian  Missionary,  carrying  the  glo 
rious  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  to  the  most 
miserably  benighted  of  His  children.  He  refuses 
to  be  called  the  mere  scientist  or  the  mere  phi 
lanthropist.  In  the  light  of  God  he  sees  light, 
and  he  makes  light  in  the  mystery  and  sin  of 
the  Dark  Continent.  Therefore  his  fame  has 
among  the  scientists  and  the  philanthropists  its 
own  peculiar  beauty.  m.  I09,  II0. 


My  times  are  in  Thy  Hand,  O  Lord !  Go  Thou 
with  me  and  I  am  safe.  And  above  all  make  me 
useful  in  promoting  Thy  cause  of  peace  and  good 
will  among  men. 

DAVID  LIVINGSTONE. 


NOVEMBER    18.  323 


THE  missionary  idea  that  man  is  God's  child 
gives  birth  to  two  enthusiasms :  one  for 
the  Father,  one  for  the  child  ;  one  for  God,  one 
for  man.'.  .  .  Who  can  tell,  as  the  missionary 
stands  there  preaching  the  salvation  to  his  dusky 
congregation,  which  fire  burns  the  warmest  in  his 
heart  ?  Is  it  the  love  for  God  or  for  his  brethren  ? 
Is  it  the  Master  who  died  for  him,  or  these  men 
for  whom  also  He  died,  from  whom  his  strongest 
inspiration  comes  ?  No  one  can  tell.  He  can 
not  tell  himself.  The  Lord  Himself  in  His  own 
parable  foretold  the  noble,  sweet,  inextricable 
confusion.  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto 
one  of  these  ye  have  done  it  unto  Me."  But 
surely  in  the  blended  power  of  the  two  enthusi 
asms  there  is  the  strongest  power  of  magna 
nimity.  All  that  the  mystic  feels  of  personal 
love  of  God,  all  that  the  philanthropist  knows 
of  love  for  man,  these  two,  each  purifying  and 
deepening  and  heightening  the  other,  unite  in 
the  soul  of  him  who  goes  to  tell  the  men  whom 
he  loves  as  his  brethren,  about  God  whom  he 
loves  as  his  Father.  n.  I79,  l8o. 

Why  they  have  never  known  the  way  before  — 
Why  hundreds  stand  outside  Thy  mercy's  door- 
I  know  not :  but  I  ask,  dear  Lord,  that  Thou 
Wouldst  lead  them  now  ! 

Why  in  the  hard  and  thorny  way  they  press 
Unloved,  uncomforted,  with  none  to  bless, 
In  living  death,  I  know  not :  but  spare  Thou, 
And  lead  them  on. 

C.  C.  FRASER  TYTLER, 


324  NOVEMBER    19. 


If  we  believe  that  Jesus  died  and  rose  again, 
even  so  them  also  which  sleep  in  Jesus  will  God 
bring  with  Him.  —  I.  THK.SS.  iv.  14. 

TT  is  a  beautiful  connection,  one  whose  mys 
terious  beauty  we  are  always  learning  more 
and  more,  that  the  deeper  our  spiritual  experi 
ence  of  Christ  becomes,  the  more  our  soul's 
life  really  hangs  on  His  life  as  its  Saviour  and 
continual  Friend,  the  more-  real  becomes  to  us 
the  unquenched  life  of  those  who  have  gone 
from  us  to  be  with  Him.  i.  226. 


Lord,  make  me  one  with  Thine  o\vn  faithful  ones, 

Thy  saints  who  love  Thee  and  are  loved  by  Thee  ; 

Till  the  day  break  and  till  the  shadows  flee 
At  one  with  them  in  alms  and  orisons  : 
At  one  with  him  who  toils  and  him  who  runs, 

And  him  who  yearns  for  union  yet  to  be  ; 

At  one  with  all  who  throng  the  crystal  sea 
And  wait  the  setting  of  our  moons  and  suns. 
Ah,  my  beloved  ones  gone  on  before, 

Who  looked  not  back  with  hand  upon  the  plough  ! 
If  beautiful  to  me  while  still  in  sight, 

How  beautiful  must  be  your  aspects  now  ; 

Your  unknown,  well-known  aspects  in  that  light 
Which  clouds  shall  never  cloud  forevermore. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSKTTI. 


NOVEMBER  20.  325 


NOWHERE  is  it  more  necessary  that  the 
Church  should  realize  the  largeness  of 
her  life,  should  know  that  she  is  not  the  Clergy 
only  but  the  total  people,  than  where  she  hears 
herself  called  upon  to  take  interest  in,  and  give 
her  help  for,  the  solution  of  the  pressing  social 
and  economical  problems  of  the  day.  Those 
calls  are  growing  constant  and  urgent.  To 
these  calls  she  must  not  close  her  ears.  The 
Church  of  Christ  must  be  a  leader  in  the  ad 
justment  of  the  relations  of  mankind  and  the 
building  of  the  better  society  which  is  to  come. 
Only,  what  is  the  Church,  and  how  shall  she 
do  this  work  ?  Not  merely  by  Ministers  study 
ing  in  their  libraries  and  preaching  from  their 
pulpits  —  though  the  earnest  thought  and  help 
ful  word  must  not  be  lacking, — but  by  Chris 
tian  men  and  women  in  their  shops  and  homes, 
growing  more  rich  in  sympathy,  and  dealing  in 
larger  daily  justice  with  their  fellow-men.  The 
great  questions  which  are  bewildering  us  are  to 
find  their  solution  quite  as  largely  in  the  fields 
of  active  work  as  in  the  laboratories  of  the 
scholars.  The  Church  is  dealing  with  these 
questions  wherever  Churchmen  are  trying  to  do 
their  duty  with  the  fullest  light.  There  is  much 
hope  in  the  Christian  Social  Union,  which  has 
been  organized  for  the  study  of  the  theory  of 
social  questions.  I  invite  to  it  your  attention 
and  regard.  There  is  still  more  hope  in  the 
growing  desire  of  all  men  to  be  just  and  fair, 
and  to  live  with  their  fellow-men  as  brethren  in 

the  family  of   God.  CONVENTION  ADDRESS. 


326  NOVEMBER    21. 


And  there  came  a  traveller  unto  tlic  rich  man, 
and  he  spared  to  take  of  his  own  flock,  and  of  his 
own  herd,  to  dress  for  the  wayfaring  man  that 
was  come  unto  him. — II.  SAM.  xii.  4. 

X/"OU  cannot  do  your  duty  to  the  poor  by  ;i 
I  society.  Your  life  must  touch  their  life. 
You  try  to  work  solely  by  a  society,  and  what 
does  it  come  to  ?  Is  it  not  the  old  story  of  the 
book  of  Samuel  ?  The  traveller  appeals  to 
you,  and  you  spare  to  take  of  your  own 
thought  and  time  and  sympathy  to  give  to  the 
wayfaring  man  that  is  come  to  you.  They 
are  too  precious.  You  say :  "  There  is 
thought,  time,  sympathy,  down  at  the  charity 
bureau  to  which  I  have  a  right  by  virtue  of  the 
contribution  1  have  made.  Go  down  and  get 
a  ticket's  worth  of  that."  n.  354. 

My  brother,  I  am  hungry  :  give  me  food 
Such  as  my  Father  gives  me  at  his  board  ; 
He  has  for  many  years  been  to  thee  good, 
Thou  canst  a  morsel,  then,  to  me  afford. 
I  do  not  ask  of  thee  a  grain  of  that 
Thou  offerest  when  I  call  on  thee  for  bread  ; 
This  is  not  of  the  wine  nor  olive  fat, 
But  those  who  eat  of  this  like  thee  are  dead. 
I  ask  the  love  the  Father  has  for  thee, 
That  thou  should'st  give  it  back  to  me  again  ; 
This  shall  my  soul  from  pangs  of  hunger  free, 
And  on  my  parched  spirit  fall  like  rain  ; 
Then  thou  wilt  prove  a  brother  to  my  need, 
For  in  the  Cross  of  Christ  thou,  too,  canst  bleed. 

JONES  VERY. 


NOVEMBER    22.  327 

Hereby  perceive  we  the  love  of  God,  because  He 
laid  down  His  life  for  us :  and  we  ought  to  lay 
down  our  lives  for  the  brethren. 

1.  JOHN  iii.  16. 

THE  wayfarers  come  to  us  continually,  and 
they  do  not  come  by  chance.  God  sends 
them.  And  as  they  come,  with  their  white  faces 
and  their  poor  scuffling  feet,  they  are  our  judges. 
Not  merely  by  whether  we  give,  but  by  how 
we  give  and  by  what  we  give,  they  judge  us. 
One  man  sends  them  entirely  away.  Another 
drops  a  little  easy,  careless,  unconscientious 
money  into  their  hands.  Another  man  washes 
and  clothes  them.  Another  man  teaches  them 
lessons.  Thank  God  there  are  some  men  and 
women  here  and  there,  full  of  the  power  of  the 
Gospel,  who  cannot  rest  satisfied  till  they  have 
opened  their  very  hearts  and  given  the  poor 
wayfaring  men  the  only  thing  which  really  is 
their  own,  themselves,  their  faith,  their  energy, 
their  hope  in  God.  Of  such  true  charity-givers 
may  He  who  gave  Himself  for  us  increase  the 
multitude  among  us  every  day  !  n.  354. 

And  the  voice  that  was  calmer  than  silence  said, 
"  Lo  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid  ! 

The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 

In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need  ; 

Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share,  — 

For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare  ; 

Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three,  — 

Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and  me." 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


328  NOVEMBER   23. 


WHEN  I  suffer  or  when  I  enjoy,  —  when 
down  these  nerves  the  quick  agony 
shoots  and  leaves  me  trembling  like  a  poor 
tree  which  the  blast  has  shivered,  or  when 
through  the  healthy  blood  peace  runs  like  the 
sunlight  on  a  flowing  river,  —  when,  in  the 
aggregate  of  life,  beneath  affections,  thoughts, 
dreams,  memories,  desires,  there  is  always 
felt  this  human  body  with  its  pangs  and 
blisses,  what  a  noble  meaning  there  is  in  it 
all  as  it  lies  open  to  the  influence  of  Jesus  ! 
"Lo,  I  am  human!"  And  all  the  dignity 
and  pathos  of  humanity  surrounds  me. 
"Behold  in  what  a  disturbed  and  struggling 
world  I  live!"  And  hope  and  fear, — twin 
captains  of  the  soul,  —  patience  and  expecta 
tion  spring  to  life.  "See  here,  touching  this 
very  flesh  of  mine,  the  fingers  of  the  hand 
whose  heart  is  my  Father's,"  and  through 
the  passions  which  the  body  feels  opens  a 
way  into  the  deepest  woes  and  loftiest 
pleasures,  which  can  belong  only  to  the 

Sons   Of   God.  INFLUENCE,  173.  174. 

But  when  the  sharp  strokes  flesh  and  heart  run  through, 

For  thee  and  not  another  ;  only  known, 

In  all  the  universe,  through  sense  of  thine  ; 

Not  caught  by  eye  or  ear,  not  felt  by  touch, 

Nor  apprehended  by  the  spirit's  sight, 

But  only  by  the  hidden,  tortured  nerves, 

In  all  their  incommunicable  pain,— 

God  speaks  Himself  to  us,  as  mothers  speak 

To  their  own  babes,  upon  the  tender  flesh 

With  fond  familiar  touches  close  and  dear ;  — 

Because  He  cannot  choose  a  softer  way 

To  make  us  feel  that  He  Himself  is  near, 

And  each  apart  His  own  beloved  and  known. 

UGO  BASSI.    SERMON  IN  THE  HOSPITAL. 


NOVEMBER   24.  329 


HTHH  construction  of  life  is  everywhere  the 
*  same.  Wherever  the  background  is  lost, 
the  foreground  grows  false  and  thin.  What  is 
this  foolish  realism  in  our  literature  but  the  loss 
of  the  background  of  the  ideal,  without  which 
every  real  is  base  and  sordid  ?  In  how  many 
bright  books  there  is  no  God  treading  on  the 
high  places  of  the  earth  ;  nay,  there  are  no  high 
places  of  the  earth  for  God  to  tread  upon.  What 
is  the  practical  man's  contempt  for  theory  ? 
What  is  the  modern  man's  contempt  for  his 
tory  ?  What  is  the  ethical  man's  contempt  for 
religion  ?  All  of  them  are  the  denials  of  the 
background  of  life.  All  of  them  therefore  are 
thin  and  weak.  v.  i22. 

Yet  is  it  just 

That  here,  in  memory  of  all  books  which  lay 
Their  sure  foundations  in  the  heart  of  man, 
Whether  by  native  prose,  or  numerous  verse  ; 

'Tis  just  that  in  behalf  of  these,  the  works, 
And  of  the  men  that  framed  them,  whether  known, 
Or  sleeping  nameless  in  their  scattered  graves, 
That  I  should  here  assert  their  rights,  attest 
Their  honors,  and  should,  once  for  all,  pronounce 
Their  benediction  ;  speak  of  them  as  Powers 
For  ever  to  be  hallowed  ;  only  less, 
For  what  we  are  and  what  we  may  become, 
Than  Nature's  self,  which  is  the  breath  of  God, 
Or  His  pure  Word  by  miracle  revealed. 

WORDSWORTH. 


330  NOVEMBER  25. 


'"THE  great  procession  of  the  year,  sacred  to 
our  best  human  instincts  with  the  accumu 
lated  reverence  of  ages,  —  Advent,  Christmas, 
Epiphany,  Good  Friday,  Easter,  Ascension, 
Whitsunday,  —  leads  those  who  walk  in  it,  at 
least  once  every  year,  past  all  the  great  Chris 
tian  facts,  and,  however  careless  and  selfish  be 
the  preacher,  will  not  leave  it  in  his  power  to 
keep  them  from  his  people.  The  Church  year, 
too,  preserves  the  personality  of  our  religion.  It 
is  concrete  and  picturesque.  The  historical 
Jesus  is  forever  there.  It  lays  each  life  con 
tinually  down  beside  the  perfect  life,  that  it 
may  see  at  once  its  imperfection  and  its  hope. 

PREACHING,  91. 


O  God,  of  unchangeable  power  and  eternal  light, 
look  favorably  on  Thy  whole  Church,  that  wonderful 
and  sacred  mystery  ;  and,  by  the  tranquil  operation  of 
Thy  perpetual  Providence,  carry  out  the  work  of  man's 
salvation  ;  and  let  the  whole  world  feel  and  see  that 
things  which  were  cast  down  are  being  raised  up,  and 
things  which  had  grown  old  are  being  made  new,  and 
all  things  are  returning  to  perfection  through  Him  from 
whom  they  took  their  origin,  even  through  our  Lord 

Jesus  Christ. 

ANCIENT  COLLECTS.    BRIGHT. 


NOVEMBER   26.  331 


/  take  pleasure  in  infirmities,  in  reproaches, 
in  necessities,  in  persecutions,  in  distresses,  for 
Chris fs  sake :  for  when  I  am  weak,  then  am  1 
strong.  — II.  COR.  xii.  10. 

T^MERE  is  a  noble  dignity  about  those  words. 
They  are  not  the  words  of  one  who  is 
merely  trying  to  console  himself  for  the  lack 
of  comfort,  and  to  hold  out  till  comfort  shall 
bestow  itself  upon  him.  They  are  the  words 
of  a  man  whom  circumstances,  which  he 
knows  to  be  the  hands  of  God,  have  led  into  a 
certain  life.  He  has  not  led  himself  there  ;  he 
has  not  chosen  poverty  ;  he  has  not  tried  to  be 
poor ;  but  being  in  that  land  of  poverty,  he 
looks  about,  and  lo  !  it  is  not  barren.  It  has 
pleasures,  revelations,  cultivations  of  its  own. 
It  has  its  own  peculiar  relationships  to  God. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  say  whether  it  is  poorer 
or  richer  than  the  other  land,  the  land  of  pro 
fusion  and  abundance.  It  is  a  true  land  by  it 
self  ;  and  Paul,  who  lives  there,  honors  and 
respects  it,  and  so  it  honors  him  and  gives  him 
freely  its  own  peculiar  strength  ;  and  he 
stands  in  the  midst  of  it  and  cries,  "When  I 
am  weak,  then  am  I  strong."  v.  162. 


332  NOVEMBER   27. 


cannot  see  the  distant  heaven.  You 
cannot  hear  the  songs  of  angels.  You 
cannot  even  say  assuredly  that  you  know  the 
love  of  God, — but  you  do  know  that  to  be 
brave  and  true  and  pure  is  better  than  to  be 
cowardly  and  false  and  foul.  You  do  know 
that  there  are  men  and  women  all  about  you 
suffering,  some  of  them  dying,  for  sympathy 
and  help.  You  do  know  that  whether  God 
loves  you  or  not,  right  is  right !  Oh,  how 
these  great  simple  assurances  come  out  when 
the  higher  lights  of  the  loftier  experiences  grow 
dark  !  I  will  not  say,  1  dare  not  say,  that  God 
lets  the  heavenly  light  be  darkened  in  order 
that  these  earthly  duties  may  appear.  1  only 
say  that  when  the  cloud  stretches  itself  across 
the  heavens,  then,  underneath  the  cloud  and 
shut  out  from  the  sunshine,  the  imprisoned 
soul  still  finds  for  itself  a  rich  life  of  duty,  a 
life  of  self-control,  a  life  of  charity,  a  life  of 
growth.  v.  ,74, 175. 


Who  knows  ?    God  knows :  and  what  He  knows 

Is  well  and  best. 

The  darkness  hideth  not  from  Him,  but  glows 
Clear  as  the  morning  or  the  evening  rose 

Of  east  or  west. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI 


NOVEMBER   28.  333 

A  MAN  has  no  right  to  give  to  the  tint  on  his 
parlor  walls  that  anxiety  of  thought  which 
belongs  only  to  the  justification  of  the  ways  of 
God  to  man.  And  why  ?  Mainly,  I  suppose, 
because  the  man  who  has  expended  his  highest 
powers  upon  the  lightest  themes  has  no  new, 
greater  seriousness  to  give  to  the  great  problems 
when  they  come,  and  so  either  avoids  them  al 
together  or  else,  by  a  strange  perversion,  turns 
back  and  gives  them  the  light  consideration 
which  was  what  he  ought  to  have  given  to  his 
headache  or  the  color  of  his  walls.  y.  247,  248. 

High  above  these  things  that  change  is  the  wise  man 

with  spirit  well  taught, 
Who  cares  not  what  he  feels, 
Nor  from  what  quarter  blows  the  shifting  breeze, 
If  but  the  holy  motive  of  his  mind  go  onward  to  the 

due  and  longed-for  end. 

For  thus  will  he  be  able  to  remain  the  same,  unshaken, 
Pointing  the  simple  eye  of  motive 
Through  many  changing  chances  straight  at  Me. 
The  purer  that  his  eye  of  motive  is, 
The  straighter  sails  the  vessel    through    the   many 

storms. 

By  two  wings  man  is  lifted  from  the  things  of  earth  — 

Simplicity  and  purity. 

Simplicity  must  be  the  keynote  to  his  motive  ; 

Purity  the  keynote  to  his  love. 

His  motive  aims  at  God  ; 

His  love  embraces  and  enjoys  Him. 

THOMAS  A  KEMPIS 


334  NOVEMBER   29. 


T  ET  us  give  thanks  to  God  upon  Thanks- 
giving  Day.  Nature  is  beautiful,  and 
fellow-men  are  dear,  and  duty  is  close 
beside  us,  and  He  is  over  us  and  in  us. 
What  more  do  we  want,  except  to  be  more 
thankful  and  more  faithful,  less  complaining 
of  our  trials  and  our  time,  and  more  worthy 
of  the  tasks  and  privileges  He  has  given  us. 
We  want  to  trust  Him  with  a  fuller  trust, 
and  so  at  last  to  come  to  that  high  life 
where  we  shall  "Be  careful  for  nothing, 
but  in  everything,  by  prayer  and  supplica 
tion,  with  thanksgiving,  let  our  request  be 
made  known  unto  God,"  for  that  and  that 
alone  is  peace.  1. 173 

For  flowers  unsought,  in  desert  places 
Flashing  enchantment  on  the  sight; 
For  radiance  on  familiar  faces 
As  they  passed  upward  into  light  ,• 

For  blessings  of  the  fruitful  season, 
For  work  and  rest,  for  friends  and  home, 
For  the  great  gifts  of  thought  and  reason,  — 
To  praise  and  bless  Thee,  Lord,  we  come. 

And  when  we  gather  up  the  story 
Of  all  Thy  mercies  flowing  free, 
Crown  of  them  all,  that  hope  of  glory, 
Of  growing  ever  nearer  Thee. 

ELIZA  SCUDDE*. 


NOVEMBER    30.  335 


T  BELIEVE  so  fully  that  the  Christian  min 
istry  in  the  next  fifty  years  is  to  have  a 
nobler  opportunity  of  usefulness  and  power 
than  it  has  ever  had  in  the  past,  that  I  would 
gladly  call,  if  1  could,  with  the  voice  of  a 
trumpet  to  the  brave,  earnest,  cultivated 
young  men  who  are  to  live  in  the  next  fifty 
years  to  enter  into  it,  and  share  the  privilege 
of  that  work  together. 

And  the  word  with  which  I  would  summon 
them  should  be  that  great  word  "  service." 
"  Whosoever  will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him 
be  your  servant,"  Jesus  said.  .  .  .  And  then 
He  stretched  out  His  arms,  and  with  that  self- 
assertion  which  no  other  son  of  man  has  ever 
dared  to  make,  He  bade  them  see  the  illustra 
tion  of  what  He  had  just  told  them  in  Himself. 
"  Even  as  the  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  min 
istered  unto  but  to  minister,"  He  said.  v.  iss. 

Almighty  God,  who  didst  give  such  grace  unto  Thy 
holy  Apostle  Saint  Andrew,  that  he  readily  obeyed  the 
calling  of  Thy  Son  Jesus  Christ,  and  followed  Him 
without  delay  ;  Grant  unto  us  all,  that  we,  being  called 
by  Thy  holy  Word,  may  forthwith  give  up  ourselves 
obediently  to  fulfil  Thy  holy  commandments  ;  through 
the  same  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER. 


336  DECEMBER    i. 

"THE  man  is  weak  and  useless  who,  however 
devoutly,  looks  only  for  the  repetition  of 
past  miracles,  good  and  great  as  those  miracles 
were  in  their  own  time.  Solemnly  and  surely 
—  to  some  men  terribly  and  awfully,  to  other 
men  joyously  and  enthusiastically —  it  is  becom 
ing  clear  to  men  that  the  future  cannot  be  what 
the  past  has  been.  The  world  of  the  days  to 
come  is  to  be  different  from  the  world  that  has 
been.  Every  interest  of  life  is  altered  ;  govern 
ment,  society,  business,  education,  all  is  altered, 
all  is  destined  to  alter  more  and  more.  Only 
these  two  elements  remain  the  same,  —  God 
and  man  !  What  then  shall  we  expect  ?  That 
God  will  guide  man  and  supply  him  as  He  has 
in  all  the  times  which  are  past  and  gone,  but 
that  the  new  government  and  guidance  will  be 
different  for  the  new  days.  He  who  believes 
that,  looks  forward  to  changes  of  faith  and 
changes  of  life  without  a  fear,  for  underneath 
all  the  changes  is  the  unchangeableness  of  God. 

V.   31,  32- 

For  Destiny  is  but  the  breath  of  God 
Still  moving  in  us,  the  last  fragment  left 
Of  our  unfallen  nature,  waking  oft 
Within  our  thought,  to  beckon  us  beyond 
The  narrow  circle  of  the  seen  and  known, 
And  always  tending  to  a  noble  end. 

All  things  are  fitly  cared  for,  and  the  Lord 
Will  watch  as  kindly  o'er  the  exodus 
Of  us  His  servants  now,  as  in  old  time. 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


DECEMBER   2.  337 


WHAT  tender  charity  and  what  unsparing 
scrutiny  there  must  be  all  over  a  world 
that  is  waiting  for  the  Judgment  Day.  At  last 
He  comes  !  Where  has  He  been  ?  Not  far 
away.  The  absence  of  the  Parable  is  but  a 
figure  for  the  suspended  judgment,  the  holding 
back  of  consequences  till  probation  is  com 
plete.  The  king's  coming  in,  what  is  that  then 
but  just  the  letting  loose  of  consequences  that 
have  been  held  back  in  His  hand,  to  fly  to  their 
causes.  Everywhere  the  reward  seeks  the 
goodness,  and  the  misery  seeks  the  sin,  and  so 
the  world  is  judged. 

Where  the  good  man  stands  with  his  eye  on 
God  is  Heaven.  Where  the  wicked  man 
cowers,  is  Hell.  No  longer  joy  gilds  the  guilt, 
and  misery  no  longer  vexes  the  goodness.  The 
setting  free  of  joy  and  sorrow  from  their  long 
unnatural  attachments  to  seek  their  fitness  of 
character,  that  is  the  coming  in  of  the  King, 
that  is  the  Judgment  Day.  Mss. 

Gather  you,  gather  you,  angels  of  God  — 

Freedom,  and  Mercy,  and  Truth  ; 
Come  !  for  the  Earth  is  grown  coward  and  old, 

Come  down  and  renew  us  her  youth, 
Wisdom,  Self-Sacrifice,  Daring  and  Love, 
Haste  to  the  battle-field,  stoop  from  above, 

To  the  Day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 


338  DECEMBER    3. 


Above  it  stood  tlie  seraphim  :  eac)i  one  Jiail  six 
wings  ;  with  twain  he  covered  his  face,  and  with 
twain  he  covered  his  feet,  and  with  twain  he  did 
fly.  —  Is.  vi.  2. 

ISAIAH  says  of  the  seraphim  not  merely  that 
their  eyes  were  covered,  but  that  they  were 
covered  with  their  wings.  Now  the  wings  rep 
resent  the  active  powers.  It  is  with  them  that 
movement  is  accomplished  and  change  achieved 
and  obedience  rendered  ;  so  that  it  seems  to  me 
that  what  the  whole  image  means  is  this,  —  that 
it  is  with  the  powers  of  action  and  obedience 
that  the  powers  of  insight  and  knowledge  are 
veiled.  .  .  .  The  mystery  and  awfulness  of  God 
is  a  conviction  reached  through  serving  Him.  .  .  . 
Behold,  what  a  lofty  idea  of  reverence  is 
here !  It  is  no  palsied  idleness.  The  figure 
which  we  see  is  not  flung  down  upon  the 
ground,  despairing  and  dismayed.  It  stands  upon 
its  feet ;  it  is  alert  and  watchful  ;  it  is  waiting 
for  commandments  ;  it  is  eager  for  work  ;  but 
all  the  time  its  work  makes  it  more  beautifully, 
completely,  devoutly  reverent  of  Him  for  whom 
the  work  is  done.  The  more  work  the  more 
reverence.  So  man  grows  more  mysterious  and 
great  to  you,  oh,  servant  of  mankind,  the  longer 
that  you  work  for  him.  Is  it  not  so  ?  So  Nature 
grows  more  mysterious  to  you,  oh,  naturalist, 
the  longer  that  you  serve  her.  Is  it  not  so  ?  So 
God  grows  more  sublime  and  awful  as  we  labor 
for  Him  in  the  tasks  which  He  has  set  us. 
Would  you  grow  rich  in  reverence  ?  Go  work, 
work,  work  with  all  your  strength ;  so  let  life 
deepen  around  you  and  display  its  greatness. 

V.  259,  260. 


DECEMBER   4.  339 


Ye  know  neither  ttic  day  nor  the  hour  wherein 
the  Son  of  Man  coineth.  —  MATT.  xxv.  13. 

T  ET  us  do  what  we  ought  and  what  we  can 
for  our  own  souls  at  once.  For  the  judg 
ment  is  coming  not  only  at  the  last  day,  but 
all  the  time.  Every  day  the  power  that  we 
will  not  use  is  failing  from  us.  Every  day  the 
God  whose  voice  speaks  through  all  the  inevi 
table  necessities  of  our  moral  life  is  saying  of 
the  men  who  keep  their  talents  wrapped  in 
napkins,  "Take  the  talent  from  him;"  and 
since  he  will  not  enter  into  the  perfect  light 

he  must  be  "cast  into  the  outer  darkness." 

i.  156. 

Why  do  we  heap  huge  mounds  of  years 

Before  us  and  behind, 
And  scorn  the  little  days  that  pass 

Like  angels  on  the  wind? 

Each  turning  round  a  small  sweet  face 

As  beautiful  as  near; 
Because  it  is  so  small  a  face 

We  will  not  see  it  clear: 

And  so  it  turns  from  us,  and  goes 

Away  in  sad  disdain : 
Though  we  would  give  our  lives  foi  it, 

It  never  comes  again. 

DINAH  MULOCH  CRAIK. 


340  DECEMBER    5. 


'""FHE  real  question  everywhere  is  whether 
1  the  world,  distracted  and  confused  as 
everybody  sees  that  it  is,  is  going  to  he 
patched  up  and  restored  to  what  it  used  to 
be,  or  whether  it  is  going  forward  into  a 
quite  new  and  different  kind  of  life,  whose 
exact  nature  nobody  can  pretend  to  foretell, 
but  which  is  to  be  distinctly  new,  unlike 
the  life  of  any  age  which  the  world  has 
seen  already.  ...  It  is  impossible  that 
the  old  conditions,  so  shaken  and  broken, 
can  ever  be  repaired  and  stand  just  as  they 
stood  before.  The  time  has  come  when 
something  more  than  mere  repair  and  resto 
ration  of  the  old  is  necessary.  The  old  must 
die  and  a  new  must  come  forth  out  of  its 
tomb.  v.  30,  i,. 

What  is  this,  the  sound  and  rumor?     What   is  this 

that  all  men  hear, 
Like  the  wind  in  hollow  valleys,  when  the  storm  is 

drawing  near, 

Like  the  rolling  on  of  ocean  in  the  eventide  of  fear? 
'Tis  the  people  marching  on. 

"  On  we  inarch  then,  we,  the  workers,  and  the  rumor 

that  ye  hear 
Is  the  blended  sound  of  battle  and  deliv'rance  drawing 

near ; 

For  the  hope  of  every  creature,  is  the  banner  that  \ve 
bear." 

And  the  world  is  marching  on. 

WILLIAM  MORRIS. 


DECEMBER   6.  341 


For  we  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment  seat 
of  Christ ;  that  every  one  may  receive  the  things 
done  in  his  body,  according  to  that  he  hath  done, 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad.  —  II.  COR.  v.  10. 

T  of  all  the  lower  presences  with  which 
they  have  made  themselves  contented  ; 
out  of  all  the  chambers  where  the  little  easy 
judges  sit  with  their  compromising  codes  of 
conduct,  with  .their  ideas  worked  over  and 
worked  down  to  suit  the  conditions  of  this 
earthly  life  ;  out  of  all  these  partial  and  imper 
fect  judgment  chambers,  when  men  die  they 
are  all  carried  up  into  the  presence  of  the  per 
fect  righteousness,  and  are  judged  by  that.  All 
previous  judgments  go  for  nothing  unless  they 
find  their  confirmation  there.  iv.  63>  64. 

O  God  the  Son,  Redeemer  of  the  world, 

Have  mercy  upon  us. 
O  our  One  Salvation, 

Save  us. 
O  Perfect  Holiness, 

Sanctify  us. 

By  Thy  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Father, 
where  Thou  ever  makest  intercession  for  us  : 
Let  Thy  servants  serve  Thee,  O  Lord,  and  let 
them  see  Thy  face. 

BOOK  OF  LITANIES.    NEALE. 


342  DECEMBER    7. 


TT  is  our  punishment  that  Jesus  shares.  It 
is  our  woe  down  into  which  His  love 
has  brought  Him.  We  hang  upon  our  cross 
and  He  hangs  on  His  beside  us.  For  our  cross 
we  can  blame  none  but  ourselves.  Our  sin  has 
brought  us  what  we  suffer,  but  His  cross  no  sin 
of  His  has  built.  It  is  the  wickedness  in  which 
we  have  so  deep  a  part,  which  decrees  that  it 
shall  be  a  cross  and  not  a  throne.  There  comes, 
as  the  result  of  all,  just  exactly  what  is  ex 
pressed  in  the  strange  deep  words  of  the  peni 
tent  thief  to  his  mocking  comrade,  —  words 
which  the  soul  may  turn  and  address  to  itself, 
invoking  from  itself  a  solemn  repentance  and 
hate  of  sin  as  it  sees  its  Saviour  a  sharer  in  the 
suffering  which  its  sin  brings  :  "  Dost  not  thou 
fear  God,  seeing  thou  art  in  the  same  con 
demnation  ?  And  we  indeed  justly,  for  we 
receive  the  due  reward  of  our  deeds ;  but  this 
man  hath  done  nothing  amiss."  j.  202. 

Beside  Thy  Cross  I  hang  on  my  Cross  in  shame, 
My  wounds,  weakness,  extremity  cry  to  Thee: 
Bid  me  also  to  Paradise,  also  me 

For  the  glory  of  Thy  Name. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


DECEMBER    8.  343 


'"FHE  ship  looks  forward  fearlessly  to  the  new 
ocean  with  its  new  stars  and  new  winds, 
for  the  same  captain  will  sail  her  there  who 
has  sailed  her  here,  and  the  fact  that  he  will 
sail  her  there  otherwise  than  he  sails  her  here 
will  be  only  the  sign  of  how  sleepless  and 
watchful  is  his  care.  v.  32. 

i. 

"  Friend,  why  goest  thou  forth 
When  ice-hills  drift  from  the  north 
And  crush  together? " 

"  The  Voice  that  me  doth  call 
Heeds  not  the  ice-hill's  fall, 

Nor  wind,  nor  weather.'' 

II. 

"  But  friend,  the  night  is  black  ; 
Behold  the  driving  wrack 

And  wild  seas  under!" 

"  My  straight  and  narrow  bark 

Fears  not  the  threatening  dark, 

Nor  storm,  nor  thunder.' 

IV. 

"  Hark  !     Who  is  he  that  knocks 
With  slow  and  dreadful  shocks 
The  walls  to  sever?  " 

"  It  is  my  Master's  call, 
1  go,  whate'er  befall  ; 

Farewell  forever." 

RICHARD  WATSON  GII.DER, 


344  DECEMBER   9. 


A  S  the  spiritual  life  with  which  the  Bible  deals 
•»•  is  the  flower  of  human  life,  so  the  Book 
which  deals  with  it  is  the  flower  of  human  books. 
But  it  is  not  thereby  an  unhuman  book.  It  is 
the  most  human  of  all  books.  In  it  is  seen  the 
everlasting  struggle  of  the  man-life  to  fulfil  it 
self  in  God.  All  books  in  which  that  univer 
sal  struggle  of  humanity  is  told  are  younger 
brothers,  —  less  clear  and  realized  and  developed 
utterances  of  that  which  is  so  vivid  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  sacred  people  and  is  perfect  in  the 
picture  of  the  divine  Man.  1  will  not  be  puzzled, 
but  rejoice  when  I  find  in  all  the  sacred  books, 
in  all  deep,  serious  books  of  every  sort,  fore- 
gleams  and  adumbrations  of  the  lights  and 
shadows  which  lie  distinct  upon  the  Bible  page. 
I  will  seek  and  find  the  assurance  that  my  Bible 
is  inspired  of  God  not  in  virtue  of  its  distance 
from,  but  in  virtue  of  its  nearness  to,  the  human 
experience  and  heart.  It  is  in  that  experience 
and  heart  that  the  real  inspiration  of  God  is 
given,  and  thence  it  issues  into  the  written 

book : 

"  Out  of  the  heart  of  Nature  rolled 
The  Burdens  of  the  Bible  old. 
The  Litanies  of  nations  came 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame  ; 
Up  from  the  burning  core  beloxv 
The  Canticles  of  love  and  woe." 

That  book  is  most  inspired  which  most  worthily 
and  deeply  tells  the  story  of  the  most  inspired 
life.  v.  ,7. 


DECEMBER    10.  345 


V/"OU  are  in  God's  world;  you  are  God's 
child.  Those  things  you  cannot  change ; 
the  only  peace  and  rest  and  happiness  for  you  is 
to  accept  them  and  rejoice  in  them.  When  God 
speaks  to  you,  you  must  not  make  believe  to 
yourself  that  it  is  the  wind  blowing  or  the  tor 
rent  falling  from  the  hill.  You  must  know  that 
it  is  God.  You  must  gather  up  the  whole  power 
of  meeting  Him.  You  must  be  thankful  that 
life  is  great  and  not  little.  You  must  listen  as 
if  listening  were  your  life.  And  then,  then  only 
can  come  peace.  All  other  sounds  will  be  caught 
up  into  the  prevailing  richness  of  that  voice  of 
God.  The  lost  proportions  will  be  perfectly  re 
stored.  Discord  will  cease  ;  harmony  will  be 
complete.  v.  ss. 


Long  and  dark  the  nights,  dim  and  short  the  days, 
Mounting  weary  heights  on  our  weary  ways, 

Thee  our  God  we  praise. 
Scaling  heavenly  heights  by  unearthly  ways, 
Thee  our  God  we  praise  all  our  nights  and  days, 

Thee  our  God  we  praise. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI 


346  DECEMBER    11. 

'"T'HE  rich  men  of  our  community  must  be 
truly  rich  themselves,  or  they  can  have 
nothing  worth  giving  to  the  poor ;  nothing 
with  which  they  can  permanently  help  their 
poorer  brethren.  Only  a  class  of  men  inde 
pendent,  intelligent,  and  glorying  in  struggle 
themselves,  can  really  send  independence,  in 
telligence,  and  the  dignity  of  struggle,  down 
through  a  whole  city's  life.  This  is  the  reason 
why  your  selfish  and  idle  rich  man,  who  has 
neither  of  these  great  human  properties,  does 
nothing  for  the  permanent  help  of  poverty. 
The  money  which  he  gives  is  no  symbol.  It 
means  nothing.  O  let  us  be  sure  that  the 
first  necessity  for  giving  the  poor  man  charac 
ter  is  that  the  rich  man  should  have  character 
to  give  him.  n.  3,v 

Our  gaieties,  our  luxuries, 

Our  pleasures  and  our  glee, 
Mere  insolence  and  wantonness, 

Alas !  they  feel  to  me. 

The  joy  that  does  not  spring  from  joy 

Which  1  in  others  see, 
How  can  1  venture  to  employ, 

Or  find  it  joy  for  me? 

ARTHUR  HUGH  CLOUGH 


DECEMBER    12.  347 


7\  A  EN  are  coming  more  and  more  to  feel  that 
the  rich  man  does  not  do  his  duty  by  the 
poor  man,  the  rich  class  does  not  really  take  of 
its  own  and  give  it  to  the  poor  class,  unless  by 
some  outflow  of  itself  it  ...  sends  a  perpet 
ual  stream  of  independence,  intelligence,  and 
struggle,  down  through  the  social  mass,  making 
the  spiritual  privileges  of  those  who  are  living 
on  the  heights  of  life  the  possession  and  inspira 
tion  of  the  waiting,  unsuccessful,  discouraged 
souls  that  lie  below.  n.  342. 

"  Lazarus,  come  forth  !  "     Out  from  the  gloom, 

Haggard  and  gaunt  and  dazed,  there  came 
He  who  had  lain  within  the  tomb 

Until  the  Blessed  One  called  his  name; 
But,  in  death's  night,  he  heard  the  sound  ; 

Forth  to  the  shuddering  gazer's  sight 
He  staggered,  in  foul  grave-clothes  bound, 

And  breathed  at  last  in  life  and  light. 

"  Lazarus,  come  forth  !  "     The  people  lies 

With  mind  in  bonds,  with  soul  all  dead  ; 
Shall  not  Christ,  through  us,  bid  it  rise? 

Through  us,  shall  not  His  words  be  said  ? 
Strong  in  His  love  —  strong  with  the  strength 

He  gives,  shall  we  not,  in  His  might, 
Call  forth  our  Lazarus  at  length 

From  its  dark  gloom  to  life  and  light? 

W.  C.  BENNET- 


348  DECEMBER    13. 

Phillips  Brooks  born,  1835. 

We,  we  have  chosen  our  path  — 
Path  to  a  clear-purposed  goal, 
Path  of  advance !  —  but  it  leads 
A  long  steep  journey,  through  sunk 
Gorges,  o'er  mountains  in  snow  ! 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

T  T  OW  large  a  part  of  our  godward  life  is  trav 
elled  not  by  clear  landmarks  seen  far  off 
in  the  promised  land,  but  as  travellers  climb  a 
mountain  peak,  by  putting  footstep  after  foot 
step  slowly  and  patiently  into  the  prints  which 
someone  going  before  us,  with  keener  sight,  with 
stronger  nerves,  tied  to  us  by  the  cord  of  saintly 
sympathy,  has  planted  deep  into  the  pathless 
snow  of  the  bleak  distance  that  stretches  up  be 
tween  humanity  and  God.  i.  I23. 


am  He  that  made  all  saints  ; 

gave  them  My  good  influence, 

showed  them  glory. 

called  them  by  My  favour, 

drew  them  by  My  pity, 

led  them  on  through  many  a  temptation, 

poured  upon  them  wondrous  consolations, 

gave  them  strength  unto  the  end, 

crowned  their  suffering, 

know  them  first  and  last, 

throw  My  arms,  with  love  past  telling,  round  them, 

must  be  praised  in  all  My  saints. 

THOMAS  X  KEMPIS. 


DECEMBER    14.  349 


CHRIST'S  powerful  death  is  the  great  re 
newing  spectacle  of  human  life.  When 
men  look  at  it,  there  comes  up  out  of  their 
hearts  the  pattern  of  divinity  which  is  there, 
their  sonship  to  the  Holy  One ;  and  to  attain 
that  holiness,  to  realize  it  perfectly,  becomes 
the  passion  of  their  lives.  And  it  is  love  for 
the  Sufferer  which  makes  that  passion,  — love 
with  its  two  perfect  elements  perfectly  com 
bined.  It  is  admiration  for  what  He  is  doing, 
the  unselfishness,  the  heroism,  the  godlike 
patience.  And  it  is  gratitude  because  He  is 
doing  it  for  us.  It  is  these  two  which  blend 
into  the  passionate  devotion  with  which  a  man, 
in  the  great  phrase  of  the  Gospels,  "follows 
after  Christ,"  —seeks,  that  is,  with  his  own 
essential  sonship,  to  realize  in  himself,  the 

SOnship   of  the   Son   Of   God.  INFLUENCE,  52. 

THE    SONG    OF  A   HEATHEN. 
{Sojourning  in  Galilee,  A.D.ji.) 

If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  man,  — 

And  only  a  man,  —  I  say 
That  of  all  mankind  1  cleave  to  him, 

And  to  him  will  1  cleave  alway. 

If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  God,  — 

And  the  only  God, —  I  swear 
I  will  follow  Him  through  Heaven  and  hell, 

The  earth,  the  sea,  and  the  air ! 

RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER 


350  DECEMBER  15. 


ST.  PAUL  would  have  men  live  here  on  earth, 
yet  conscious  of  their  capacity  of  Heaven. 
He  would  have  earth  real,  clear,  definite,  dis 
tinct,  shining  with  its  own  color,  holding  us 
with  its  own  grasp  ;  and  yet  he  would  have 
man  so  conscious  of  his  larger  self  that  the  very 
defmiteness  of  what  he  is  to-day  makes  real  to 
him  the  greater  thing  that  he  will  be  in  the  vast 
world  beyond. 

Is  not  that  what  we  want  ?  The  life  of  earth 
now,  the  life  of  heaven  by  and  by,  —  each  clear 
with  its  own  glory  !  And  our  humanity  capable 
of  both,  capable  of  sharp  thinking,  timely  hard 
work  here  and  now,  capable  also  of  the  super 
nal,  the  transcendent  splendor  there  when  the 
time  shall  come  !  The  glory  of  the  star,  the 
glory  of  the  sun  !  We  must  not  lose  either  in 
the  other ;  we  must  not  be  so  full  of  the  hope 
of  heaven  that  we  cannot  do  our  work  on  earth  ; 
we  must  not  be  so  lost  in  the  work  of  earth  that 
we  shall  not  be  inspired  by  the  hope  of  heaven. 
God  grant  us  all  the  contentment  and  the  hope 
which  come  to  those  who  live  in  Him  who 
covers  all  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever  with 
Himself.  iv.  72. 

The  earth  may  gain  by  one  man  the  more, 

And  the  gain  of  earth  shall  be  heaven's  gain  too. 

BROWNING. 


DECEMBER    16.  351 


Now  it  is  higli  time  to  awake  out  of  sleep : 
for  now  is  our  salvation  nearer  than  when  we 
believed.  —  ROMANS  xiii.  1 1 . 

THOSE  words  which  once  came  from   the 
apostle's  lips,  expressed  the  feeling  and 
the     power    which    was    always    in    all    the 
apostles'  hearts. 

And  it  has  been  this  expectation  of  the 
coming  of  the  Lord  which,  ever  since  the 
time  of  the  apostles,  has  always  been 
the  inspiration  of  the  Christian  world.  The 
noblest  souls  always  have  believed  that 
humanity  was  capable  of  containing,  and  was 
sure  sooner  or  later  to  receive,  a  larger  and 
deeper  infusion  of  divinity.  The  promise  of 
Christianity  is  as  yet  but  half  fulfilled.  All 
that  has  been  done  yet  in  all  the  Christian 
centuries  is  only  the  sketch  and  prelude  of 
what  is  yet  to  be  done.  .  .  .  And  as  the 
noblest  souls  have  thought  of  the  world's 
history,  so  the  most  earnest  men  and  women 
have  always  thought  of  their  own  lives.  The 
power  of  any  life  lies  in  its  expectancy. 
"What  do  you  hope  for?  What  do  you 
expect?"  The  answer  to  these  questions 
is  the  measure  of  the  degree  in  which  a  man 
is  living.  He  who  can  answer  these  questions 
by  the  declaration,  "  The  Lord  is  at  hand  : 
I  am  expecting  a  higher,  deeper,  more  per 
vading  mastery  of  Christ"  —we  know  that 
he  is  thoroughly  alive.  iv.  ^,  355. 


352  DECEMBER    17. 


\Visdom  crietfi  aloud  .  .  .  'J'iie  f.ord  possessed 
/ne  in  the  beginning  of  His  way,  before  His  works 
of  oht.  I  was  set  up  from  everlasting,  .  .  .  or 
ever  the  cartli  was.  .  .  .  fief  ore  the  mountains 
were  settled,  before  the  hills  was  I  brought  forth. 
PROV.  viii.  22,  23,  25. 

WHEN  the  Hebrew  used  the  word  "  wisdom  " 
of  man,  it  covered  the  whole  range  of 
spiritual  life,  either  in  its  moral  or  its  mental 
aspects.  .  .  .  There  are  two  layers  of  power 
in  life  ;  the  one  that  lies  upon  the  top  is  carnal. 
It  is  material,  inert.  It  has  no  power  to  shape 
itself.  The  other  that  lies  below  is  spiritual. 
It  is  full  of  force  and  movement.  Skill,  judg 
ment,  affection,  duty,  knowledge,  these  are  its 
elements.  Out  of  it  force  comes  to  move  the 
dead  mass  that  cannot  move  itself.  The  world 
of  things  is  moved  by  the  world  of  character. 
Perhaps  this  word,  "character,"  in  its  spir 
ituality,  and  comprehensiveness,  and  variety, 
most  nearly  expresses  the  idea  of  the  old 
"  wisdom."  .  .  . 

It  shines  in  many  a  work  of  man.  Wherever 
it  appears  it  is  excellent  and  beautiful.  But  its 
true  glory  is  seen  back  where  the  thought  of 
God  first  touches  the  gross  chaos  with  intention 
and  a  world  is  born.  Its  Epic  is  that  first  chap 
ter  of  Genesis.  There  where  the  Spirit  of  God 
moves  upon  the  face  of  the  lifeless  waters  and  a 
divine  voice  summons  the  light  and  creates 
order,  there  is  Creation,  there  is  the  Eternal 
Wisdom  moving  into  visibility.  ...  All  the 
wisdom  and  skill  that  is  in  the  world  is  to  be 
traced  home  to  one  devising  and  ordering  mind 
that  sits  above  and  issued  into  all  our  life. 

OXFORD    REVIEW. 


DECEMBER    18.  353 

Christ  Jesus,  who  of  God  is  made  unto  us  wis 
dom  and  righteousness  and  sanctification  and  re 
demption.  —  I.  COR.  i.  30. 

DEMEMBER  what  Christ  is  called  in  St. 
F\  John's  Gospel,  "  The  Word."  A  word 
is  wisdom  in  utterance.  Remember  what  St. 
Paul  calls  Christ,  "  The  power  of  God  and  the 
wisdom  of  God."  Remember  what  is  said  of 
the  Word  in  that  first  chapter  of  St.  John, 
"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word.  He  was 
with  God  and  He  was  God."  "  He  was  in  the 
beginning  with  God."  "All  things  were 
made  by  Him."  "  In  Him  was  life,  and  the 
life  was  the  light  of  men."  It  is  just  exactly 
what  is  said  of  Wisdom  in  ...  Proverbs. 
"  The  Lord  possessed  me  in  the  beginning  of 
His  way."  "When  He  prepared  the  Heavens, 
I  was  there."  "Whoso  fmdeth  Me,  findeth 
Life."  See  how  the  Word  was  just  the  Wis 
dom  at  last  uttering  Itself  to  a  needy  world. 
This  divine  love  and  grace  and  truth  which 
we  have  been  tracing  in  Creation  and  in  Provi 
dence,  at  last  coming,  that  men  might  know 
them  perfectly,  and  putting  on  humanity  and 
becoming  incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ. 

OXFORD  REVIEW. 

O  Wisdom,  Which  earnest  forth  out  of  the  Mouth  of 
the  Most  High,  and  readiest  from  one  end  to  the  other, 
mightily  and  sweetly  ordering  all  things:  Come  and 
teach  us  the  way  of  prudence.  WISDOM,  vm.  z,  7. 


354  DECEMBER    19. 


SURELY  this  is  the  most  terrible  and  ghastly 
thing  about  all  sorrow,  the  sense  that  it 
must  have  been  prepared  for  us  in  all  the  un 
conscious  days  when  we  never  thought  of  it. 
This  is  the  thought  of  fate  which  takes  the  pang 
of  suffering  and  presses  it  home  into  the  very 
soul.  How  old,  how  everlasting  our  suffering 
is !  And  just  then  to  many  a  soul  Wisdom 
opens  her  voice  and  cries.  Wisdom,  the  divine 
mind,  the  divine  intention,  will,  love,  she  has 
something  to  say.  "  Before  the  mountains 
were  settled,  before  the  hills  was  1  brought 
forth."  Yes,  the  sorrow  is  old,  it  says,  but  the 
plan  of  God,  instinct  with  love,  that  made  the 
sorrow  possible,  is  older.  .  .  .  More  eternal, 
more  fundamental  than  your  suffering  is  the 
love,  the  justice,  the  thoughtfulness  of  God. 
Let  your  soul  rest  on  them  and  be  at  peace. 

OXFORD  REVIEW 

Amid  the  awe 

Of  unintelligible  chastisement, 
Not  only  acquiescences  of  faith 
Survived,  but  daring  sympathies  with  power, 
Motions  not  treacherous  or  profane,  else  why 
Within  the  folds  of  no  ungentle  breast 
Their  dread  vibration  to  this  hour  prolonged  ? 
Wild  blasts  of  music  thus  could  find  their  way 
Into  the  midst  of  turbulent  events  ; 
So  that  worst  tempests  might  be  listened  to. 
Then  was  the  truth  received  into  my  heart, 
That,  under  heaviest  sorrow  earth  can  bring, 
If  from  the  affliction  somewhere  do  not  grow 
Honor  which  could  not  else  have  been,  a  faith, 
An  elevation,  and  a  sanctity, 
If  new  strength  be  not  given,  nor  old  restored, 
The  blame  is  ours,  not  Nature's. 

WORDSWORTH. 


DECEMBER   20.  355 


Christ  .   .   .  the  wisdom  of  God. —  I.  COR.  i.  24. 

ITH  this  identification  in  our  minds,  how 
clear  becomes  all  that  we  said  before 
about  the  wisdom  of  God  being  the  soul's 
refuge  in  affliction  and  temptation.  .  .  .  But 
now  it  is  not  the  voice  of  any  abstraction,  no 
merely  celestial  wisdom  that  cries  out  to  him 
and  offers  to  help  him,  and  assures  him  of  its 
own  eternity.  But  it  is  the  dearer,  and  closer, 
and  tenderer  voice  of  a  man,  of  a  friend,  of 
Christ  the  Consoler  and  the  Strengthener. 
He  speaks,  He  assures  the  soul  that  He  is 
older  than  its  sorrow,  older  than  its  trial,  that 
He  has  had  purposes  concerning  it  that  go 
back  behind  its  birth.  He  was  there  when  the 
arrow  was  launched,  and  knows  what  it  was 
sent  for.  Mounting  back  along  the  continuous 
eternity  of  Christ,  the  soul  outgoes  its  sorrow, 
and  gets  back  to  the  purpose  of  its  sorrow 
which  it  finds  folded  safe  and  warm  in  the 
hand  of  the  eternal  Christ's  wise  love.  The 
soul's  Christ,  with  His  eternity,  dwarfs  the 
puny  ages  of  its  calamities  and  makes  them 
seem  temporary  and  insignificant. 

OXFORD  REVIEW 

In  Him  again 

We  see  the  same  first,  starry  attribute, 
"  Perfect  through  suffering,"  our  salvation's  seal 
Set  in  the  front  of  His  Humanity. 
For  God  has  other  Words  for  other  worlds, 
But  for  this  world  the  Word  of  God  is  Christ. 

UGO  BASSI.    SERMON  IN  THE  HOSPITAL. 


356  DECEMBER    21. 

TT  is  especially  in  the  great  mysterious 
*  work  of  the  atonement  that  Christ  is  seen 
to  be  the  wisdom,  the  conquering  spiritual 
element  in  the  world.  .  .  .  When  Jesus 
died,  it  was  as  if  He  lifted  up  His  voice 
and  said:  "Sin  is  old,  but  I  am  older  than 
sin  ;  sin  is  strong,  but  I  am  stronger  than  sin  ; 
punishment  is  necessary,  but  mercy,  the 
forgiveness  of  the  penitent,  is  a  necessity 
far  back  behind  that,  deeper  in  the  Eternal 
Divinity.  The  law  began  its  vengeance 
when  man  broke  it,  but  '  1  was  set  up  from 
everlasting,  from  the  beginning,  or  ever  the 
earth  was.'  Know,  O  my  brethren,  that 
even  more  original  and  certain  than  the  truth 
that  God  must  punish  you  if  you  do  wrong, 
is  the  higher  truth  that  God  will  forgive  you, 

if  you  repent."  OXFORD  REVIEW. 

Blessed  be  Thou,  O  Lord, 

So  good  unto  Thy  servant,  according  to  the  great 
ness  of  Thy  pity. 

What  can  I  say  more  in  Thy  presence, 
But  humbly  lay  myself  before  Thee, 
Mindful  of  my  iniquity  and  worthlessness? 
For  there  is  none  like  Thee 
'Mid  all  the  wonders  of  the  heaven  and  earth. 
Thy  works  are  very  good, 
Thy  judgments  true, 
And  by.  Thy  foresight  all  is  ruled. 
Praise  then  to  Thee  and  glory, 
O  Wisdom  of  the  Father  ; 
Bless  and  praise  Him,  O  my  lips, 
My  soul  and  all  things  that  are  made. 

THOMAS  A  KKMPIS. 


DECEMBER    22.  357 


THREE  things  concerning  (the  Puritans)  are 
worthy  of  our  notice,  —  first,  that  the 
Puritans,  who  came  direct  from  England,  are 
always  to  be  distinguished  from  the  Pilgrims, 
who  came  by  way  of  Holland  and  caught  some 
of  the  broader  spirit  of  that  "  nursery  of  freedom 
and  good-will ;  "  second,  that  the  noblest  utter 
ance  of  hopeful  tolerance  in  all  that  noble  cen 
tury  was  in  the  famous  speech  in  which  John 
Robinson,  their  minister,  bade  loving  farewell  to 
his  departing  flock  at  Leyden,  in  which  occur 
those  memorable  words:  "I  am  verily  per 
suaded,  I  am  very  confident,  that  the  Lord  has 
more  truth  yet  to  break  out  of  His  holy  Word  ;  " 
and  thirdly,  that  somewhere  in  the  bitter  heart 
of  Puritanism  was  hidden  the  power  which, 
partly  by  development,  and  partly  by  reaction, 
was  to  produce  the  freedom  of  these  modern 

days.  TOLERANCE,  36,  37- 

God  of  our  fathers,  Thou  who  wast, 

Art,  and  shalt  be  when  those  eye-wise  who  flout 

Thy  secret  presence  shall  be  lost 

In  the  great  light  that  dazzles  them  to  doubt, 

We,  sprung  from  loins  of  stalwart  men 

Whose  strength  was  in  their  trust, 

That  Thou  wouldst  make  Thy  dwelling  in  their  dust, 

And  walk  with  them,  a  fellow-citizen, 

Who  build  a  city  of  the  just, 

We,  who  believe  Life's  bases  rest 

Beyond  the  probe  of  chemic  test, 

Still,  like  our  fathers,  feel  Thee  near, 

Sure  that,  while  lasts  the  immutable  decree, 

The  land  to  Human  Nature  dear 

Shall  not  be  unbeloved  of  Thee. 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


358  DECEMBER   23. 


DEATH  is  so  old  in  the  world.  It  lies  so 
thick  and  heavy  upon  all  we  do  and  are. 
But  "  Life  is  older  than  Death,"  Christ  said,  and 
so,  when  He,  the  Master,  came,  the  intrude* 
yielded  before  Him.  He  rose  from  the  grave, 
"because  it  was  not  possible  that  He  should 
beholden  of  it."  And  so  all  that  He  tells  us 
of  our  resurrection,  all  that  St.  Paul  expounds 
so  fully  of  the  power  of  the  spirit,  that  that 
which  is  sown  a  natural  body  shall  be  raised  a 
spiritual  body,  what  is  it  all,  but  an  assertion 
that  in  us,  too,  the  spiritual  life  is  stronger  than 
any  law  of  physical  decay,  and  must  come  up 
through  them  all  to  meet  the  issues  of  the  spirit 
ual  world  ?  This  is  the  last  triumph  of  that 
spiritual  nature  which  is  older  and  more  funda 
mental  than  the  mountains  and  the  streams, 
when  the  earth  and  the  sea  shall  give  up  their 
dead,  because  it  is  not  possible  that  they  shall 

be  holden  Of  them.  OXFORD  REVIEW. 


O  quickly  come,  true  Life  of  all  ; 

For  Death  is  mighty  all  around  ; 
On  every  home  his  shadows  fall, 

On  every  heart  his  mark  is  found  ; 
O  quickly  come  ;  for  grief  and  pain 
Can  never  cloud  Thy  glorious  reign. 

LAWRENCE  TUTTIETT. 


DECEMBER   24.  359 

EVERYWHERE  the  nature  that  is  conscious 
of  the  infiniteness  of  life  longs  to  believe 
in  a  manifested  God.  Its  whole  disposition  is 
toward  faith ;  and  then  if  any  glimpse  is 
offered  of  a  Son  of  God,  a  manifestation  of 
the  Invisible  Deity  who  sends  happiness 
and  sorrow  and  who  can  forgive  sin,  there 
is  no  tendency  to  disbelieve,  there  is  the 
hunger  of  the  heart  leaping  with  fearful 
hope.  ...  To  one  who  finds  the  forces  of 
this  life  sufficient,  an  incarnation,  a  super 
natural  salvation  is  incredible.  To  one  who, 
looking  deeper,  knows  there  must  be  some 
infinite  force  which  it  has  not  found  yet,  — 
some  loving,  living  force  of  Emmanuel,  of 
God  with  man, — the  Son  of  God  is  waiting 
on  the  threshold  and  will  immediately  come. 
Christ  supposes  an  element  of  incompleteness 
everywhere,  making  a  hungry  world,  —  pre 
paring  the  whole  man  not  to  reject  as 
useless  and  incredible,  but  to  accept  as  just 
what  it  needs  and  expects,  a  mysterious,  a 
supernatural,  divine  Redemption,  preparing 
the  mental  nature  for  faith,  and  the  moral 
nature  for  repentance,  and  the  spiritual 
nature  for  guidance.  To  this  readiness  alone 
can  Christ  come.  v.  20s,  209. 

O  little  town  of  Bethlehem  ! 

How  still  we  see  thee  lie  ; 
Above  thy  deep  and  dreamless  sleep 

The  silent  stars  go  by  ; 
Yet  in  thy  dark  streets  shineth 

The  everlasting  Light ; 
The  hopes  and  fears  of  all  the  years 

Are  met  in  thee  to-night. 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS 


360  DECEMBER   25. 


Unto  us  a  Child  is  born.  —  Is.  ix.  6. 
They  shall  call  His  Name  Emmanuel  .  .  .    God 
with  its.  —  MATT.  i.  23. 

How  silently,  how  silently, 

The  wondrous  gift  is  given  ! 
So  God  imparts  to  human  hearts 

The  blessings  of  His  heaven. 
No  ear  may  hear  His  coming, 

But  in  this  world  of  sin, 
Where  meek  souls  will  receive  Him  still, 

The  dear  Christ  enters  in. 

O  holy  child  of  Bethlehem  ! 

Descend  to  us  we  pray ; 
Cast  out  our  sin,  and  enter  in, 

Be  born  in  us  to-day. 
We  hear  the  Christmas  angels 

The  great  glad  tidings  tell ; 
Oh  come  to  us,  abide  with  us, 

Our  Lord  Emmanuel! 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS. 

AND  now  once  more  comes  Christmas  Day. 
Once  more,  borne  abroad  on  the  words 
of  simple-minded  shepherds,  runs  the  story. 
God  and  man  have  met,  in  visible,  actual 
union,  in  a  life  which  is  both  human  and 
divine.  .  .  .  Lift  up  yourselves  to  the  great 
meaning  of  the  Day,  and  dare  to  think  of 
your  Humanity  as  something  so  sublimely 
precious  that  it  is  worthy  of  being  made  an 
offering  to  God.  Count  it  a  privilege  to  make 
that  offering  as  complete  as  possible,  keeping 
nothing  back,  and  then  go  out  to  the  pleasures 
and  duties  of  your  life,  having  been  truly  bom 
anew  into  His  Divinity,  as  He  was  born  into 
our  Humanity,  on  Christmas  Day. 

CHRISTMAS  SERMON. 


DECEMBER   26.  361 


THE  Incarnation  opened  the  spiritual,  the 
supernatural,  the  eternal.  It  was  as  if  the 
clouds  were  broken  above  this  human  valley 
that  we  live  in,  and  men  saw  the  Alps  above 
them,  and  took  courage.  For,  remember,  it 
was  a  true  Incarnation.  It  was  a  real  bringing 
of  God  in  the  flesh.  It  was  a  real  assertion  of 
the  possible  union  of  humanity  and  divinity  ; 
and  by  all  its  tender  and  familiar  incidents,  by 
the  babyhood  and  home  life,  the  hungerings 
and  thirstings  of  the  incarnate  Christ,  it 
brought  the  divinity  that  it  intended  to  reveal 
close  into  the  hearts  and  houses  of  mankind. 
It  made  the  supernatural  possible  as  a  motive 
in  the  smallest  acts  of  men.  ...  It  brought 
God  so  near  that  no  slightest  action  could  hide 
away  from  Him  ;  that  every  least  activity  of 
life  should  feel  His  presence,  and  men  should 
not  only  lead  their  armies  and  make  their  laws, 
but  rise  up  and  go  to  sleep,  walk  in  the  street, 
play  with  their  children,  work  in  their  shops, 
talk  with  their  neighbors,  all  in  the  fear  and 
love  of  the  Lord.  \.  l86. 

{Steplien*)  said,  Behold  I  see  the  heavens  opened, 
and  tJie  Son  of  Man  on  the  right  hand  of  God. 

ACTS  vii.  56. 

It  is  not  death,  O  Christ,  to  die  for  Thee  : 

Nor  is  that  silence  of  a  silent  land 

Which  speaks  Thy  praise  so  all  may  understand  : 
Darkness  of  death  makes  Thy  dear  lovers  see 
Thyself  Who  Wast  and  Art  and  Art  to  Be ; 

Thyself,  more  lovely  than  the  lovely  band 

Of  saints  who  worship  Thee  on  either  hand 
Loving  and  loved  through  all  eternity. 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 


362  DECEMBER   2; 


AS  we  watch  Jesus  [on  the  night  of 
the  Passover]  sitting  there  and  telling 
the  disciples  truth  after  truth  about  Himself, 
what  words  like  the  old  words  of  the  Psalmist 
describe  the  scene,  He  is  "clothing  Himself 
with  light  as  with  a  garment."  We  can 
seem  to  see  the  lustrous  raiment  of  truth 
gathered  about  His  familiar  form,  at  once 
revealing  it  to,  and  hiding  it  from,  His 
amazed  disciples ;  revealing  it  to  their  love, 
hiding  it  from  their  understanding,  .  .  . 
until  at  last  the  John  who  had  once  ques 
tioned  Jesus  as  if  he  were  a  scribe  or 
teacher,  "Master,  where  dwellest  thou  ?  " 
is  seen  writing  his  reminiscence  of  it  all  in 
words  that  burn  with  mysterious  reverence, 
words  that  make  us  think  he  wrote  them  on 
his  knees.  "  The  Word  was  made  flesh  and 
dwelt  among  us,  and  we  beheld  His  glory, 
the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the 
Father."  11.315.3.6. 

All  at  once  I  looked  up  with  terror. 
He  was  there. 

He  Himself  with  His  human  air, 
On  the  narrow  pathway,  just  before. 
I  saw  the  back  of  Him,  no  more-— 

No  face  :  only  the  sight 

Of  a  sweepy'garment,  vast  and  white, 

With  a  hem  that  1  could  recognize. 

Soul  of  mine,  hadst  thou  caught  and  held 
By  the  hem  of  the  vesture  !  —  And  1  caught 
At  the  flying  robe,  and  unrepelled 
Was  lapped  again  in  its  folds  full-fraught 
With  warmth  and  wonder  and  delight, 
God's  mercy  being  infinite. 

BROWNING 


DECEMBER    28.  363 

T  KNOW  that  the  death  of  the  beggar,  the 
*  death  of  the  baby,  has  in  it  a  mystery  of 
force  which  no  wisest  man  can  comprehend. 
I  know  that  He  whose  life  was  one  with  the 
baby's  and  the  beggar's,  and  yet  infinitely 
deeper,  vaster,  must  have  had  a  mystery  in 
His  death  over  which  eternity  shall  keep 
guard,  husbanding  its  treasures,  and  giving 
them  forth  to  the  eternally  ripening  soul  as  it 
shall  need  and  shall  be  able  to  receive  them. 
He  who  tells  me  that  he  will  read  to  me  now 
the  mystery  of  the  death  of  Jesus,  shuts  my 
ears  with  his  very  offer.  I  will  not  let  him  tear 
for  me  the  mystery  of  the  dawn  which  no 
hand  can  hasten  as  it  slowly  brightens  to  the 

full    morning.  INFLUENCE.  5.. 

[Ifoly  Innocents'  Day.] 

Oh  weep  not  o'er  thy  children's  tomb, 

Oh  Rachel,  weep  not  so  ! 
The  bud  is  cropt  by  martyrdom, 

The  flower  in  Heaven  shall  blow  ! 

Firstlings  of  faith  !  the  murderer's  knife 

Has  miss'd  its  deadliest  aim  : 
The  God  for  whom  they  gave  their  life, 

For  them  to  suffer  came. 

Though  feeble  were  their  days  and  few, 

Baptized  in  blood  and  pain, 
He  knows  them,  whom  they  never  knew, 

And  they  shall  live  again. 

REGINALD  HEBER. 


364  DECEMBER   29. 


The  foundations  of  the  wall  of  ///<•  city  were 
garnished  with  all  manner  of  precious  stones.  .  .  . 
The  glory  of  God  did  lighten  it.  —  RF.V.  xxi.  1 9,  23. 

EVERY  new  experience  is  a  new  opportunity 
of  knowing  God.  Every  new  experience 
is  like  a  jewel  set  into  the  texture  of  our  life, 
on  which  God  shines  and  makes  interpretation 
and  revelation  of  Himself.  You  hang  a  great 
rich  dark  cloth  up  into  the  sunlight,  and  the  sun 
shines  on  it  and  shows  the  broad  general  color 
that  is  there.  Then  one  by  one  you  sew  great 
precious  stones  upon  the  cloth,  and  each  one, 
as  you  set  it  there,  catches  the  sunlight  and 
pours  it  forth  in  a  flood  of  peculiar  glory.  A 
diamond  here,  an  emerald  there,  an  opal  there, 
the  sun  seems  to  rejoice  as  he  finds  each 
moment  a  new  interpreter  of  his  splendor, 
until  at  last  the  whole  jewelled  cloth  is  burn 
ing  and  blazing  with  the  gorgeous  revelation. 
Now  a  much-living  life,  a  life  of  manifold 
experiences,  is  like  a  robe  which  bursts  forth 
of  itself  to  jewels.  They  are  not  sewn  on 
from  the  outside.  They  burn  out  of  its  sub 
stance  as  the  stars  burn  out  of  the  heart  of  the 
night..  And  God  shines  with  new  revelation 
upon  every  one.  And  the  man  who  feels 
himself  going  out  of  a  dying  year  with  these 
jewels  of  experience  which  have  burned  forth 
from  his  life  during  its  months,  and  knowing 
that  God  in  the  New  Year  will  shine  upon 
them  and  reveal  Himself  by  them,  may  well 
go  full  of  expectation,  saying,  "  The  Lord  is 
at  hand."  IV  359. 


DECEMBER   30.  365 


Brethren,  the  time  is  short.  —  I.  COR.  vii.   29. 

T  1FE  as  a  part,  life  set  upon  the  background 
of  eternity,  life  recognized  as  the  temporary 
form  of  that  whose  substance  is  everlasting,  that 
is  short;  we  wait  for,  we  expect  its  end.  And 
remember  that  to  the  Christian  the  interpreta 
tion  of  all  this  is  in  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus 
Christ.  "I  am  He  that  liveth,  and  was  dead  ; 
and  behold,  1  am  alive  for  evermore."  The 
earthly  life  set  against  the  eternal  life,  the  in 
corporate  earthly  form  uttering  here  for  a  time 
the  everlasting  and  essential  being,  those  years 
shut  in  out  of  the  eternities  between  the 
birth  and  the  ascension,  that  resurrection  open 
ing  the  prospect  of  the  life  that  never  was  to 
end,  —  these  are  the  never  failing  interpretation 
to  the  man  who  believes  in  them  of  the  tem 
poral  and  eternal  in  his  own  experience. 

i.  330, 331. 

Does  the  precept  run  "  Believe  in  Good, 
In  Justice,  Truth,  now  understood 
For  the  first  time  "?  — or,  "  Believe  in  Me, 
Who  lived  and  died,  yet  essentially 

Am  Lord  of  Life"? 

BROWNING 


366  DECEMBER    31. 


OH  friends,  the  old  year  is  fast  slipping  back 
behind  us.  We  cannot  stay  in  it  if  we 
would.  We  must  go  forth  and  leave  our  past. 
Let  us  go  forth  nobly.  Let  us  go  as  those 
whom  greater  thoughts  and  greater  deeds 
await  beyond.  Let  us  go  humbly,  solemnly, 
bravely,  as  those  must  go  who  go  to  meet  the 
Lord.  With  firm,  quiet,  serious  steps,  full  of 
faith,  full  of  hope,  let  us  go  to  meet  Him  who 
will  certainly  judge  us  when  we  meet  Him, 
but  who  loves  us  while  He  judges  us,  and  who, 
if  we  are  only  obedient,  will  make  us,  by  the 
discipline  of  all  the  years,  fit  for  the  everlast 
ing  world,  where  life  shall  count  itself  by 
years  no  longer.  iv.  369. 

Time's  waters  will  not  ebb,  nor  stay, 
Power  cannot  change  them,  but  Love  may; 

What  cannot  be,  Love  counts  it  done. 
Deep  in  the  heart,  her  searching  view 
Can  read  where   Faith  is  fix'd  and  true, 
Through    shades    of    setting    life   can    see    Heaven's 
work  begun. 

O  Thou,  who  keep'st  the  Key  of   Love, 
Open  Thy  fount,  eternal  Dove, 

And  overflow  this  heart  of  mine, 
Enlarging  as  it  fills  with  Thee, 
Till  in  one  blaze  of  charity 
Care  and  remorse  are  lost,  like  motes  in  light  divine; 

Till  as  each  moment  wafts  us  higher, 
By  every  gush  of  pure  desire, 

And  high-breathed  hope  of  joy  above, 
By  every  secret  sigh  we  heave, 
Whole  years  of  folly  we  outlive, 
In  His  unerring  sight,  who  measures  Life  by  Love. 


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